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(Hans)wahhbumlancewarwar czarwelfarewelfare reformwhimsical signswhite culturewhite phosphoruswild burroswillpowerwinewitticismsworkplace issuesworld populationyouth sportsüber-richSocraticGadflyA skeptical leftist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more.
Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill.
<br>As seen at Washington Babylon and other fine establishmentshttp://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)Blogger12997125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-4443181033822593313Mon, 21 Jan 2019 13:37:00 +00002019-01-21T07:37:01.274-06:00Big TobaccomarijuanaPhilip MorrisStates miss regulatory golden opportunity on pot legalization<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/03/31/17/53/baking-1293986__340.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="340" height="200" src="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/03/31/17/53/baking-1293986__340.png" width="200" /></a></div>I've seen plenty of articles like <a href="https://en.pakistantv.tv/2019/01/04/marijuana-is-more-dangerous-than-you-think">this</a>, originally in the WSJ, that note that the THC level of modern commercial marijuana is far greater than many moons ago when I was in high school and college.<br /><br />That alone should give blank-check pro-pot advocates pause when they claim it's not addictive, period. Or when they claim that "pot paranoia" doesn't exist.<br /><br />For the record, I believe it is addictive, physically and psychologically, and that such a problem of "pot paranoia" is real. However, the likes of Malcolm Gladwell, former Big Tobacco shill, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/14/is-marijuana-as-safe-as-we-think">overstate that</a>. Aaron Carroll <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/upshot/the-reasonable-way-to-view-marijuanas-risks.html">specifically calls him out</a> for making unjustified extrapolations.<br /><br />Contra the Reefer Madness crowd, I don't believe marijuana causes cancer, no matter how ingested. Contra the blank-checkers, though, I do believe that smoked marijuana can cause COPD.<br /><br />So, marijuana is certainly less dangerous than opiates. May or may not be as dangerous as alcohol. Is NOT danger-free.<br /><br />And, hence, states could probably better regulate it than they are now, in places where legalized, especially full recreational legalization.<br /><br />Namely, I think states should have a cap on max THC levels, and should also bar any adulteration that would increase addictiveness. Were I a state legislator in a state considering legalization, my vote would be contingent on either a max THC or max THC/gram cap, as well as a taking a listing from adulturants Big Tobacco added to cigs and barring them from being added to any smokable form of marijuana.<br /><br />Would commercial pot companies do that? You bet your ass they would, just like Philip Morris added ammonia and other stuff to Marlboros.<br /><br />Second, states need to work — to the degree possible under current federal marijuana laws — on devising a standard measurement for, and field testing of, marijuana intoxication levels. I'm thinking of the marijuana equivalent of a breathalyzer for DWI. Per Carroll above, current tools measure just THC in the body and not impairment.<br /><br />Given that Altria, the former Philip Morris, just bought e-cigarette maker Juul, and just before that, up in the new Oh Wooowwww Canada, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/investing/altria-cronos-investment-marijuana/index.html">bought into the pot industry</a>, the possibility that pot could be tampered with not only to further boost its THC, but through the addition of other chemicals, to further boost the addiction potential of THC already in it, should be something that is considered in advance. Carroll, without mentioning Big Tobacco by name, also wars about that. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/upshot/the-reasonable-way-to-view-marijuanas-risks.html">Read his piece</a>.<br /><br />That said, states would find all of this much easier to do if marijuana were downscheduled by the Drug Enforcement Administration from its current Schedule 1 to no higher than Schedule 3.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/JnpfVedEDr8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/JnpfVedEDr8/states-miss-regulatory-golden.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/states-miss-regulatory-golden.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-7679138190176219432Sat, 19 Jan 2019 13:30:00 +00002019-01-19T07:47:25.829-06:00St. Louis CardinalsSTLCards: Bryce, Manny, or a starting pitcher plus depth?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xv7Pzto8tls/XEInc0KYTCI/AAAAAAAAJ9Q/usDAJqWyaZIe2XT6mHJx0GQkNO8GUGg_gCKgBGAs/s1600/Bryce%2BHarper%2BKool-Aid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="504" height="238" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xv7Pzto8tls/XEInc0KYTCI/AAAAAAAAJ9Q/usDAJqWyaZIe2XT6mHJx0GQkNO8GUGg_gCKgBGAs/s320/Bryce%2BHarper%2BKool-Aid.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">STL Cards fans: Don't drink the Bryce Harper Kool-Aid</td></tr></tbody></table>Thursday night, I saw a #Bryce2STL hashtag trending on Twitter.<br /><br />Time to respond.<br /><br />First, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/goldspa01.shtml">Paul Goldschmidt</a> IS&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/harpebr03.shtml">Bryce Harper</a>&nbsp;for this year, if you will.<br /><br />Second, especially with that framing, you can never have enough pitching.<br /><br />And, contra the Mike Shildt bullshit,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wainwad01.shtml">Adam Wainwright</a>&nbsp;not only is not a sort-of No. 1 starter, he's really not a starter period.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wachami01.shtml">Michael Wacha</a>&nbsp;is not a No. 1 starter; he's a recurring injury waiting for a new outbreak.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reyesal02.shtml">Alex Reyes</a>&nbsp;should not be pencilled in for anything until he hurdles his two serious injuries for more than 25-30 innings.<br /><br />A rotation that starts off with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mikolmi01.shtml">Miles Mikolas,</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martica04.shtml">Carlos Martinez</a>&nbsp;and maybe, say, <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/keuchda01.shtml">Dallas Keuchel</a> has a solid foundation. Mikolas should eat a lot of innings, too, and Keuchel can. (I'll have a post next week on a suggested offer to Keuchel, assuming he's still available.)<br /><br /><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/flaheja01.shtml">Jack Flaherty</a>&nbsp;is your No. 4.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/weavelu01.shtml">Luke Weaver</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gantjo01.shtml">John Gant</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/ponceda01.shtml">Daniel Poncedeleon&nbsp;</a>fight for the No. 5.<br /><br />Waino goes in the pen for long relief, spot starts to stretch out the four young'uns early in the season and to mop up. Maybe use&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/millean01.shtml">Andrew Miller</a>&nbsp;as an occasional "opener" on a lefty-heavy team and have Waino follow. Reyes also spot starts after rounding into shape in Memphis. Reassess the 4-5 spots by or before the All-Star break.<br /><br />A rotation like that also stabilizes the pen a lot.<br /><br />But, we need another starter, IMO. Waino isn't one and what I said on Wacha. I got into a fairly friendly, but somewhat heated, Twitter discussion on this last Friday with a group of Cards fans, in the hipster / bro / lumberjack division of male Millennials, perhaps, who can think of nothing beyond the imperative of signing&nbsp;Bryce.<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Maybe it's the bro and hipster types among Millennial <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/STLCards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#STLCards</a> fans who think Bryce Harper is the be-all and end-all, I guess? Judging by Twitter responses to me, that's my best guess. Maybe some own stock in a new website, or a Bleacher Report sub-vertical?</div>— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1086332676330672129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2019</a></blockquote>They're intoxicated&nbsp;to the point that they ignore the reality that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/machama01.shtml">Manny Machado</a>&nbsp;is much better. (One even pivoted to say that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/carpema01.shtml">Matt Carpenter</a>&nbsp;said he feels comfortable in the OF, if the Cards needed room for Machado. I'd take Manny well ahead of Bryce, but ... lemme see ... that's the Matt Carpenter with 24 games of MLB outfield experience and none since 2014? Find me a better way to make room for Machado. (Even if WAR is overrated, runs above average, runs from position, and more, Manny is ahead of Bryce on all, which, as much as alleged underpay offers to Machado, may be part of why <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/bryce-harper-remains-unsigned-how-much.html">both are still unsigned</a>. In fact, if 7/$175 from the ChiSox is actually Manny's best offer, I would applaud Mo if he beat that just enough to sign him. Without parking Carp in the OF every day, we'll find a way to make room in the inn-field.)<br /><br />But, there are cheaper solutions yet that, because they don't involve infield finagling and do address pitching rotation realities, not fantasies.<br /><br />Anyway, here's a sample Tweet with my quote:<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">When a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/STLCards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#STLCards</a> fan is so desperate for ONLY Bryce Harper he tweets this as an allegedly "ace" rotation to avoid discussing the idea of trading for or signing as a FA a starting pitcher instead of Harper. <a href="https://t.co/Pjmm6F0IFL">https://t.co/Pjmm6F0IFL</a></div>— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1086331127806095360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2019</a></blockquote><div>No, just no.</div><div><br /></div><div>First, per above, Waino ain't a starter. Second, Cards fans counting Reyes eggs before they hatch need to Just.Stop.It. Third, Wacha's an injury waiting to happen, as noted. If you seriously think Waino is a starter (other than Mike Shildt making him one in a lineup) you've already damaged your credibility with me.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for "fill"? Give <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grandcu01.shtml">Curtis Granderson</a> a cheap contract as a backup LH corner OF. That's especially important if <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/fowlede01.shtml">Dexter Fowler</a> doesn't bounce back.<br /><br />NB: The Reds possibly adding <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grayso01.shtml">Sonny Gray</a> further underscores the value of good pitching arms.<br /><br />==<br /><br />And, if you have to salivate over Harper, at least <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/more-just-say-no-to-bryce-harper-or.html">be realistic about his value</a>. Oh, and hit the poll at right as to when you think Harper will sign, wherever that might be.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/Qpmixneu1gI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/Qpmixneu1gI/stlcards-bryce-manny-or-starting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/stlcards-bryce-manny-or-starting.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-6245467602381619131Fri, 18 Jan 2019 13:00:00 +00002019-01-18T07:00:07.765-06:002020 electionsGabbard (Tulsi)Drinking the Tulsi Gabbard Kool-Aid and strawmanning opposition to her<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EkK2fANGhBo/XDrBCN8i1MI/AAAAAAAAJ80/BupgbQ-kUCgsEyNQst3Hw45PadLRkzIOACKgBGAs/s1600/Tulsi%2BKool-Aid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="700" height="243" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EkK2fANGhBo/XDrBCN8i1MI/AAAAAAAAJ80/BupgbQ-kUCgsEyNQst3Hw45PadLRkzIOACKgBGAs/s320/Tulsi%2BKool-Aid.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><h3><span style="color: #cc0000;">And why is Michael Tracy leading?</span></h3><br />So, going well beyond defending the most interesting of announced presidential candidates, who would be ...<br /><br />Tulsi Gabbard, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2016/03/sandernistas-tulsi-gabbard-bigotry.html">the lover of Hindu nationalist fascists</a> ... and <a href="https://readsludge.com/2018/12/26/tulsi-gabbard-took-thousands-from-members-of-right-wing-hindu-group/">lover of their campaign finance money</a> ... and lover of American&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/LeanOnAndLead/status/1084218602285383680">defense contractor finance money</a> ...<br /><br />Some alleged left-liberal types like Michael Tracy or whatever the hell we call Glenn Greenwald besides libertarian are moving at least partially into full-blown apologetics territory.<br /><br />Tracey, especially, looks like he's about ready to become at least her PR spox if not her campaign manager.<br /><br />As for him being an actual, or alleged, or self-presented, or encouraging others to infer, left-liberal? Not so fast on that. I've got that near the bottom of this piece, in a mini-hot take on Tracey and why he's got his knickers in a knot for Tulsi.<br /><br />Contra the RSS bromance, Tracey says, "but she also spoke to a Congress Party gathering." Yeah, and Hitler spoke to German Catholic bishops. So sue me for trotting out Godwin's Law.<br /><br />This is far from the only strike against Gabbard anyway.<br /><br />1. An in-depth 2017 piece by<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/what-does-tulsi-gabbard-believe">&nbsp;the New Yorker</a>&nbsp;points out that she's a Trump-like level of political weathervane — other than never changing on her BJP support. I've already muted one Twitterer who refused to accept that she could want to stop American involvement in the war in Syria yet still be an Islamophobe (like Trump). That includes, like Trump, supporting a blanket ban on Syrian refugees coming to the US as part of "extreme vetting." Eoin Higgins <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/tulsi-gabbards-foreign-policy-and-the-progressive-left.html">has details</a>.<br /><br />2. In 2016, Hawaii's Dem LGBT caucus&nbsp;<a href="https://mauitime.com/news/politics/heres-why-the-hawaii-lgbt-caucus-doesnt-support-rep-tulsi-gabbards-reelection-campaign/">endorsed her Dem primary opponent</a>, they found her so untrustworthy. As of late 2018,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/used-to-bucking-establishment-gabbard-eyes-white-house-run/2018/12/18/84187bb8-02fb-11e9-958c-0a601226ff6b_story.html?utm_term=.062ebef35c3f">they still find her untrustworthy</a>. So, Tulsi Kool-Aid drinkers who say she supports gay rights? People on the islands kind of disagree. (On the first link, at the time, folks like the idiotic Democratic Underground attacked the messenger, the Maui Times, as a "conservative rag" rather than actually consider the message, just because Tulsi was posing as a Berniecrat. Especially in light of the second link, the message rings true.)<br /><br />3. She did, eventually, support Conyers' HB 676, but I don't trust the depth of that support. Even since then, she's used the New Dem weasel phrase "universal health care."<br /><br />4. She still has not modified in any way her BJP support. As of six months ago,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.minoritiesofindia.org/open-letter-urges-tulsi-gabbard-end-rss-relationship/">she still drew ire</a>&nbsp;of Indian minorities for that and the Islamophobia associated with it. RSS leaders spoke at the World Hindu Congress she attended.<br /><br />(Note: If Modi weren't PM, and Obama were still president, I suspect he'd still be blocked from entry to our country. So, it's the BJP, not just the RSS.)<br /><br />5. A Jan. 5, 2019 Intercept piece has&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/tulsi-gabbard-2020-hindu-nationalist-modi/">more</a>.<br /><br />6. In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNqbE3jApb8&amp;feature=youtu.be">this video</a>, with quote noted on&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard#Foreign_policy">Wikipedia</a>, Tulsi supports the "ticking time bomb" idea that torture is sometimes justified.<br /><br />7. She's also&nbsp;<a href="https://louisproyect.org/2016/03/02/tulsi-gabbard-a-real-piece-of-work/">pro-drone</a>.<br /><br />8. She also accused Palestinians in Gaza of using people as human shields, basically spouting standard Israeli talking points, and signed off on a blank check Congressional resolution to that effect.<br /><br />9. Related to the three above, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party">per a Jacobin piece</a> that Tracey dissed as part of his strawmanning, she has been a suck-up to neocons in general.<br /><br />9A. She's <a href="https://www.cfr.org/membership-roster-g-k">a member</a> of the Council on Foreign Relations, for doorknob's sake. Yes, it has more than 100 members; nonetheless, for someone who allegedly stands up to the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, aka The Blob, that's "interesting" at least.<br /><br />10. She was once a DNC vice chair before opportunistically jumping ship in early 2016 to endorse Bernie. I suspect she either got busted doing something unethical or else made a crude and rebuffed power play. But, the alleged contrarian certainly wasn't so at one time. After all, she was selected for the spot <a href="http://www.rafu.com/2013/02/gabbard-named-vice-chair-of-dnc/">way back in 2013</a>, and she still touts that <a href="https://www.votetulsi.com/news/2013-01/gabbard-elected-dnc-vice-chair">on her website</a>. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was already known to be a hack at that time, Hillary Clinton was known to be the inside candidate for president at that time, and superdelegates were known to be problematic to left-Democrat reformers at that time. Oh, and per that New Yorker piece, which I link again <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/06/what-does-tulsi-gabbard-believe">here</a>? Schultz said she was NOT "disinvited" from the first debate. And, I believe Dancing With the Schultz over Gabbard, which itself should explain her trust level with me.<br /><br />That said, the Kool-Aid drinkers, and a strawmanner like Tracey, should note that I did NOT say she's wrong to support Trump on removing troops from Syria. (What Trump actually is doing has been overstated, though.) I've said <i><b>long ago</b></i> that we should get out. I've said&nbsp;<i><b>long ago</b></i>&nbsp;that Assad, while not "good," is the "least bad" realistic option to keep leading Syria. Ive said&nbsp;<i><b>long ago</b></i>&nbsp;that not every gas attack the MSM and the bipartisan foreign policy establishment has tried to pin on Assad was actually done by him. I've said&nbsp;<i><b>long ago</b></i>&nbsp;that the White Helmers were a PR outfit connected to ISIS.<br /><br />Note that "<i><b>long ago</b></i>"? As in, I have known this for quite some time, and independently of Tulsi Gabbard?<br /><br />So, to her Kool-Aid drinkers? I would certainly vote for any reasonable Green for president against her. An Islamophobe who may still be a closet bigot on gay rights hasn't captured me, let alone I wouldn't vote for a Trump-level weathervane and seemingly blatant political climber.<br /><br />==<br /><br />As for Tracey in particular? Even before the Gabbard announcement, for the past month or two before that, he'd been writing some hacktacular crap. It's only gotten worse now. He's lost two reputational star levels with me, not just one.<br /><br />And, until I hit teh Google, I forget Tracey's own #FakeNews claim <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/maxine-waters-attacked-journalist-michael-tracey-parallel-universe-maybe-620371">that Maxine Waters pushed him</a>. I couldn't have forgotten, because I did not know until this teh Google, that <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/michael-tracey/">Tracey wrote extensively</a> for paleocon outfit The American Conservative. That includes <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/2013/05/15/will-obamas-scandals-change-attitudes-toward-government/">repeating conservative BS</a> that the IRS targeted conservative political shops. Both <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/michael-tracey/">there</a>, and before that <a href="https://reason.com/people/michael-tracey/all">at Reason</a>, he wrote several bromance articles about Ron Paul, never talking about his racism or his Religious Right stances that undercut his claims to really being a libertarian. (And, yes, Michael, they're bromance pieces, and I may just do a separate blog post about this.)<br /><br />The Paul bromance, assuming the heart of yearning for it still beats — and I have no reason to believe it does not — explains a lot about Tracey running Gabbard up the flagpole and saluting her. I wonder if, in a lower grade way, Tracey doesn't support sort of Caitlin Johnstone-type red-brown or red-black alliance. If not seeing his Uranus rising in the House of Caity, then compare him to a younger <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Raimondo">Justin Raimondo</a>. (I hadn't looked up his address in years; he comes off more than ever as a self-hating gay if he can't even support traditional libertarian ideas for legal positive protection of gay rights as needed.)<br /><br />And, no, this isn't an "occasional thing." Tracy was writing for Reason before the Occupy movement started. He wrote nearly 30 pieces for TAC over five years. Which then leads me to wonder: Was The Young Turks that dumb to hire him? That lazy on vetting him? Did he do some good spinning? Many Redditors <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMajorityReport/comments/8wex15/another_tyt_reporter_bites_the_dust_this_time_its/">had the same questions</a> at the time Cenk let him go.<br /><br />And, I wonder if Tracey has ever thought of modifying his "<a href="https://medium.com/theyoungturks/anti-semitism-is-horrible-but-not-a-dominant-force-in-american-life-e7d008e0fc37">anti-Semitism isn't THAT bad</a>" comments after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. As for him citing Alec Cockburn as support? I stopped reading Counterpunch for years in part because I thought Alec sometimes pushed the envelope on anti-Zionism hard enough to put a toe or two across the line of anti-Semitism. In any case, it was arguably dumb at the time and certainly is now. It comes off as of a piece with his Tulsi comments, though; that he's the one true person to see left-liberal reality correctly.<br /><br />Speaking of Michael's seeming fellow travelers? Caity's <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/01/14/five-reasons-im-excited-about-tulsi-gabbards-candidacy/" rel="nofollow">also got the hots</a> for Tulsi. Reason No. 5 is wrong, per what I've read about the reasons behind the DNC split. Besides, things like superdelegates have been around, and have been a problem, for 40 years. And, it took Tulsi three-plus to complain? She also takes a selective look at Tulsi's foreign policy (i.e., not a word about India or about refugees).<br /><br />Glenn doesn't seem to be a Kool-Aid drinker as much as a fence-straddler, or at least he seemed that way when she first announced. But, his tweets were ... not altogether sound, is the best way I can explain it. (Note: More and more left-liberals and leftists who take a serious look at both economic and social injustice have over the past year or two taken a more serious look at Glenn, and found him more and more wanting.)<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/ApfX9v2orBU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/ApfX9v2orBU/drinking-tulsi-gabbard-kool-aid-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/drinking-tulsi-gabbard-kool-aid-and.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-6169239137658272366Thu, 17 Jan 2019 13:00:00 +00002019-01-19T09:25:44.721-06:00Major League BaseballMLBBryce Harper remains unsigned — how much longer? And ditto on Manny Machado<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201901020/images/headshots/c/c61e922e_mlbam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="120" src="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201901020/images/headshots/c/c61e922e_mlbam.jpg" /></a></div>So, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/harpebr03.shtml">Bryce Harper</a>&nbsp;free agency derby carries on, presuming agent Scott Boras is still hunting something like 10/$350 and either one or two opt-outs.<br /><br />See the poll at upper right or&nbsp;<a href="https://vote.pollcode.com/66924822">click the link</a>&nbsp;to vote on when you think he signs a deal. Note that we've already gone past the first cut-off point I mentioned.<br /><br />Do you look at the guy with the 10-WAR year and say, yeah, we hope we get even close to that?<br /><br />Or do you look at the guy with the THREE sub-2 WAR years (and only one of those due primarily to injury) and say "Too much risk factor"?<br /><br />Per the third slide in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/quick-hits-goold-on-the-cardinals/collection_2d9631f1-87df-5096-971d-f6132c713c69.html">this round-up</a>&nbsp;by Derrick Goold, I presume the Cardinals, John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch have already decided to do the latter.<br /><br />Let's compare Harper to a big contract the Cards were willing to take on in trade just 12 months ago, namely,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stantmi03.shtml">Giancarlo Stanton</a>, as I've already done this on Twitter in exchange with Bill James.<br /><br />The 10 years left on his contract, at $285 million, are actually "just" $28.5 million AAV. (Take away his option year, and 9/$260 is approximately $29M AAV.) But, you'd pay him 10/$350 if Bryce is getting that, right? Even if Bryce is 3 years younger?<br /><br />So, let's look at WAR.<br /><br />Harper, seven years, 27.4 WAR is 3.9 per year. Stanton, nine years at 39.2, is 4.35 per year.<br /><br />Let's throw out best and worst years of both and check that.<br /><br />Harper? 16.3/5=3.26. Stanton? 27/7=3.85. &nbsp;You've still got that one-half WAR per year difference. Another way of putting this is, if you throw out the best year of both, Stanton still has four 4-WAR seasons and Harper two. (If you want to round up Harper's 3.7 year, we get to do that with Stanton's 3.8.)<br /><br />In addition, other than when he got hit in the face by a pitch, Stanton was a much better health risk.<br /><br />Add in that Harper has, in the past, been valued more highly on defense than Stanton and B-Ref putting him at -3.0 on dWAR in 2018 should be of some concern.<br /><br />Looking beyond the Cards, remember that Boras doesn't always win, even when he waits and waits and waits. Just last year, he did get a win with <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martijd02.shtml">J.D. Martinez</a>, but not with <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/arrieja01.shtml">Jake Arrieta</a>. Or <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/moustmi01.shtml">Mike Moustakas</a>. (Who sits and waits again this year after his one-year contract a year ago.) Or <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hollagr01.shtml">Greg Holland</a>.<br /><br />What if, per <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grandya01.shtml">Yasmani Grandal</a> reportedly turning down a solid deal from the Mets, and eventually having to eat a bit of crow on a one-year deal with the Brew Crew, that Washington's original offer to Harper was the best Harper and Boras have seen and the best they will see?<br /><br />As noted, Boras has had his share of "losses" before. Just never one potentially this big.<br /><br />What if he and Harper start seeing things crossways from one another, whether it's Harper wanting to capitulate first or Boras?<br /><br />"That's a clown question bro."<br /><br />Maybe, maybe not.<br /><br />Some of this may be at the edges of collusion. I'll likely tackle that in a blog post after this year's free agency class clears the field.<br /><br />Some of it is the Billyball and analytics revolution — which Boras was trading on a decade ago — hitting enough front offices that it's now been flipped against him.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201901130/images/headshots/4/45d62ce6_mlbam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="120" src="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201901130/images/headshots/4/45d62ce6_mlbam.jpg" /></a></div>Speaking of, let's take a briefer look at <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/machama01.shtml">Manny Machado</a>, with the same ideas as above, in part because he's represented by Dan Lozano, the biggest agent competitor to Boras. In his case, I am going to throw out a partial rookie season as well as his worst full season.<br /><br />Manny is at almost 6 WAR per year. The only slight eyebrow raisers are a subpar for him 2017 and bREF ranking him negatively on defense in his Orioles first half of 2018.<br /><br />If a WAR is worth $7M, and you knock him down to "just" 5 WAR a year, Machado is in today's baseball world easily worth $35M/year for 8 years, or more. In short, he's worth the Bryce Harper contract that Scott Boras is peddling for Harper.<br /><br />Where are we at?<br /><br />On Harper, we've not heard any indication that anybody has made a better offer than what the Nats did in-season last year. What if the market dries up enough they pull back in their original offer themselves, knowing they're still ahead of everybody else? Like 9/$260 instead of 10/$300, while throwing in an opt-out year they didn't originally offer.<br /><br />On Machado, yesterday, <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/white-sox-offer-manny-machado-seven-years-175-million.html">MLB Trade Rumors said</a> the White Sox offer was 7/$175. Later yesterday, though, <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/agent-dan-lozano-issues-statement-on-latest-manny-machado-reports.html">Lozano said</a> that report is totally untrue. Maybe so, maybe not. We know Lozano fell short of his agent grand slam hopes with <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml">Albert Pujols</a>, and occasionally manipulated the media in his chase of attempting to pass <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rodrial01.shtml">Alex Rodriguez</a> for biggest contract ever.<br /><br />And, in a follow-up, there IS at least one "mystery team," because Machado <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/mystery-teams-reportedly-pursuing-manny-machado.html">met with one</a>.<br /><br />Meanwhile, hit the poll on Harper.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/fkAB3m8E1zw" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/fkAB3m8E1zw/bryce-harper-remains-unsigned-how-much.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/bryce-harper-remains-unsigned-how-much.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-6096675901905515540Wed, 16 Jan 2019 14:42:00 +00002019-01-16T08:42:43.158-06:002020 electionsBloggingTX Progressives roundup — the wall, the shutdown, the Lege<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="349" height="154" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with federal workers and contractors and their families amidst the longest government shutdown in history as it brings you this week's roundup.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://offthekuff.com/wp">Off the Kuff</a> congratulates Dan Patrick for his <a href="http://offthekuff.com/wp/?p=89202">success</a>in claiming victory on the bathroom bill.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/">SocraticGadfly</a>saw the number of "names" already making 2020 presidential announcements, along with the speculation about many others, and offered <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/early-2020-democratic-presidential.html">his initial oddsmaking take on Democratic candidates</a> along with other assessment.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.doscentavos.net/">Stace at Dos Centavos is back!</a> Last week, he provided <a href="https://doscentavos.net/2019/01/10/chicano-political-prisoner-ramsey-muniz-released/">more context to the recent prison release</a> of La Raza Unida Party's Ramsey Muñiz than the MSM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It's been a fun time, but <a href="https://texasleftist.com/"><strong>Texas Leftist</strong></a> has decided to finally close up shop in the blog format.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>But if you've enjoyed the great content over these years, please give my brand new venture a listen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>Welcome to the <a href="https://texasleftist.com/2019/01/the-ingressive-voices-podcast-check-it-out/"><strong>Ingressive Voices Podcast</strong></a>!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Hope to see you (hear you??) there!!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And here are some posts of interest about Texas and the nation of progressive background.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/as-one-of-the-eleven-new-women-in-the-texas-house-we-must-take-sexual-misconduct-seriously/">State Rep. Erin Zwiener</a> asks us to take sexual misconduct seriously.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/marfa-stereotype-mock-the-simpsons/">Dan Solomon</a> notes that the town of Marfa is now famous enough to be mocked by <em>The Simpsons</em>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2019/01/fixing-longstanding-criminal-justice.html">Grits for Breakfast</a> gives the Lege a to-do list for criminal justice reform.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.thelunchtray.com/healthier-school-food-you-can-ask-your-district-to-staythecourse/">The Lunch Tray</a> calls for action to oppose the weakening of school lunch nutrition standards.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://paradiseinhell.net/2019/01/09/individual-1-speaks-red-translates-3/">Paradise in Hell</a> remains our foremost interpreter of Individual One.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://swamplot.com/a-visual-compendium-of-where-houstons-neighborhood-names-come-from/2019-01-11/">Swamplot</a>finds a visual compendium of where Houston's neighborhood names came from.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dbcgreentx.net/blog/aoc-clickbait-for-dbc">David Bruce Collins</a> has a roundup of Alexandria Ocasio Cortex thoughts.</div><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 16px;">Jill Stein's recount effort, having first produced results in&nbsp;</span><a href="https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2018/11/jill-stein-huge-victory-for-election-integrity/" style="font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px;">Pennsylvania</a><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 16px;">, including a requirement to move to ballots with a paper trail, added to that in&nbsp;</span><a href="https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2019/01/jill-stein-wins-another-court-victory-for-election-integrity/" style="font-family: cambria; font-size: 16px;">Wisconsin</a><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 16px;">, including getting to take a peek at the guts of voting machines.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>The Children of the Confederacy plaque <a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/texas-confederate-plaque-is-coming-down-11462426">is coming down</a> from the Capitol in Austin.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/6yZ5TE7ffpM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/6yZ5TE7ffpM/tx-progressives-roundup-wall-shutdown.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/tx-progressives-roundup-wall-shutdown.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-1366734621094517220Tue, 15 Jan 2019 13:35:00 +00002019-01-19T14:09:49.917-06:00border securityfederal government shutdownAs the government shutdown continues: Playing 'gotcha' with Dems on wall votesThe likes of Brie Brie Joy, writing for The Intercept, and Lee Camp, among others, last week played "gotcha" with national Democrats, claiming that then-Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, along with current Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in 2006, had no problem voting for a wall.<br /><br />Politifact rates that <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/23/mick-mulvaney/fact-check-did-top-democrats-vote-border-wall-2006/">half-true</a>, and I agree.<br /><br />Politifact describes several ways in which the Secure Fence Act was different from Trump.<br /><br />First, it was for sections of the border as a stand-alone item. It was not to fund part of a barrier for the entire border.<br /><br />Second, as the word "fence" in the bill's name indicates, it was NOT for a wall. And, although Trump, in his semi-dotage, has slipped at times on Twitter, it's clear he wants a wall.<br /><br />Indeed, Politifact notes that Trump has called what was approved in 2006 too weak.<br /><br />Politifact has a related piece from Obama's presidency <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/barack-obama/obama-says-border-fence-now-basically-complete/">here</a>.<br /><br />It's not a totally false claim, whether out of the mouth of wingnuts trying to score purity points or from alleged leftists looking for another "gotcha" on Democrats.<br /><br />Since, at the level of national politics, I long ago did my duopoly exit, I don't normally feel the need for such gotcha.<br /><br />So far, only the wingers are saying, "But Dems voted for $25 billion for the wall a year ago." They did. But, for Democrats, that was for a 10-year payout, not one year, it was tied to DACA renewal, and even more, to a better process for legal immigration and other issues, <a href="https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/nation-world/senate-rejects-daca-bill-25-billion-for-wall/67-519361171">and Trump rejected that</a>.<br /><br />Besides, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shep-smith-chris-wallace-shutdown-fox-news_us_5c42df2fe4b0a8dbe17197d7">as Shep Smith said</a> Jan. 18 in owning Chris Wallace, current House Dems campaigned on not giving Trump more wall money. And took back the House.<br /><br />Again, so far, only wingers are saying that. Stay tuned, as the shutdown continues.<br /><br />And, <a href="http://www.dbcgreentx.net/blog/who-lives-who-dies-who-tells-the-best-story">per David Bruce Collins</a>, the Dems themselves, after the disastrous Pelosi-Schumer response to Trump (contra Bernie Sanders' much better personal one), need to up their storytelling and narrative game. (That then said, George Lakoff isn't a perfect adviser on such things.)<br /><br />==<br /><br />That said, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/14/government-shutdown-fema/">as Eoin Higgins notes</a>, on things like reauthorizing federal flood insurance just before the shutdown, there ARE things on which to play gotcha on Dems.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/_dPX8BxdIU4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/_dPX8BxdIU4/as-government-shutdown-continues.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/as-government-shutdown-continues.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-6607052151247567027Mon, 14 Jan 2019 15:16:00 +00002019-01-14T09:16:00.205-06:002016 presidential electionStein (Jill)Charles Davis vs Jill Stein, round 2<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jillstein/pages/28939/attachments/original/1543444026/GettyImages-627821538.jpg?1543444026" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="594" height="226" src="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jillstein/pages/28939/attachments/original/1543444026/GettyImages-627821538.jpg?1543444026" width="320" /></a></div>I'm no big fan of Jill Stein's recount of the 2016 presidential election, and wasn't from the start. Even though she was hamstrung by election laws in some states, nonetheless, the recount appeared Democrat-biased, and, contra Green Party defenders of the recount who have pointed out those election law issues, I doubt either she or David Cobb knew that at the time. Given her endorsing Bernie Sanders in the California Democratic primary, plus her indication of a willingness to step aside and offer him the Green Party nomination — which she couldn’t do and later claimed she wasn’t trying to do — I have good reason for that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">That's why, when I read Charles Davis' piece in The Daily Beast last May about the lack of FEC filings, the amount of money Cobb and others were being paid for their work, and how the Stein campaign seemed to be reneging on its initial plans for a public vote on using the leftover money, I was intrigued.</div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 12pt;">Intrigued enough&nbsp;<a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/05/jill-stein-is-still-recounting-while.html">to blog about it</a>.</span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But, also, "intrigued" by Davis willing to strawman leftists over Syria, to the point of calling Sy Hersh a conspiracy theorist. And, yes, I think this does color to some degree his reporting, or at least potentially.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s also remember that the Daily Beast (not sure if Davis or not) “broke” the story of Stein’s questionable financial investments just before the election. That said, they ARE questionable, and even if they offer lower returns, “ethical” mutual funds exist.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 12pt;">So, now that we've seen the Stein recount effort produce results in&nbsp;<a href="https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2018/11/jill-stein-huge-victory-for-election-integrity/">Pennsylvania</a>, including a requirement to move to ballots with a paper trail, and now in&nbsp;<a href="https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2019/01/jill-stein-wins-another-court-victory-for-election-integrity/">Wisconsin</a>, including getting to take a peek at the guts of voting machines,&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;cambria&quot;; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal">I tweeted Davis back, asking for an update/folo piece, since part of the thrust of his original was that Stein hadn't gotten any results, probably wouldn't get any results, and to the degree that her effort probably was not a traditional recount, was reduplicative of other, established, election security agencies.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, he did nothing more than double down on his original statement. He eventually gave me a suggestion on Twitter to "do check out" the blog at Stein's new site, and the ongoing pay issues.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I counter-suggested that, if we're giving suggestions, that he do stop strawmanning leftists on things like Syria. In my second-last Tweet before that, I made clear that I'm not a Stein fan because she's an AccommoGreen, per above.</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"(D)o stop strawmanning leftists over Syria and other foreign policy issues, as long as we're offering suggestions here."&nbsp;</i></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal">Somehow, I doubt that will happen. Just as much as I doubt he'll write an honest folo, if any.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And, to the degree my tweeting was trollish, the man has well earned it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">That said, my straight take?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">On the Wisconsin issues, Stein may have accomplished something, since it was in the envelope of a recount, that already-existing vote integrity nonprofits could not have gotten.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">That then said? Do I think voting machines have been regularly hacked by Putin, or regularly manipulated by voting machine companies? No.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Do I think previous claims about how easy they are to hack have been overstated?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Absolutely,&nbsp;<a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/09/election-security-and-voting-machines.html">as I recently blogged</a>.<br /><br />The paper trail issue in Pennsylvania? Corrupt Democrats and about equally corrupt Republicans have both refused to do anything about that in the Keystone State. Straight-up win, there, Charlie. (Are paper ballots perfect, themselves? Nope. They can still be stolen, or added unto. Landslide Lyndon, 1948, kids.)<br /><br />As I told you? Man up. Stop being a hack.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/28ak4034bFQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/28ak4034bFQ/charles-davis-vs-jill-stein-round-2_14.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/charles-davis-vs-jill-stein-round-2_14.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-4639167839521622995Sun, 13 Jan 2019 19:46:00 +00002019-01-13T13:46:55.723-06:00marijuana decriminalizationO'Rourke (Beto)Beto-Bob O'Rourke doesn't walk the walk on legal pot (updated)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/03/31/17/53/baking-1293986__340.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="340" height="200" src="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/03/31/17/53/baking-1293986__340.png" width="200" /></a></div>Yes, this is primarily a state issue, but to some degree, it's also a federal one. And, while Beto O'Rourke talks the talk about marijuana, as far as I know, he has sponsored no bill to even address the&nbsp;Drug Enforcement Administration&nbsp;continuing to list pot as a Schedule 1 drug, let alone do anything more than that. Anne Helen Peterson doesn't&nbsp;discuss this issue in her 8,000-world puff piece, which itself indicates how much Beto's putting it on the back burner in red-lands Texas. (I searched the piece. The word "marijuana" is not mentioned once. In turn, it seems like Beto is stereotyping old, white, red-lands Texas on this issue, as old, white, pro-pot Willie Nelson is from Abbott.<br /><br />Per a piece Walker Bragman <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/13/beto-o-rourke-public-sector-unions/">just wrote in The Intercept</a>, the legend of "Beto loves pot legalization" most likely got its start from when he was on the El Paso City Council. There, it was simply a tactical ploy, threatening to start a dialog about drug legalization. Whether Beto <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/pot-sylvestre-reyes-beto-orourke_n_1555576.html">then primaried Sylvester Reyes</a> because he actually supported pot legalization or just because he was mad about Reyes <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/14/drug-legalization-debate_n_157798.html">threatening to whack Obama stimulus money</a> for El Paso after the council approved a Beto-pushed regulation is open to debate, as is the issue of how much this played in Beto's first House run, period, as this went down in 2009 and Beto didn't run until 2012, not 2010. So, claiming this drove Beto to challenge Reyes is itself an uncritical promotion of the legend of Beto on pot.<br /><br />In any case, by the time he got elected to DC, to any degree Beto actually believed in marijuana decriminalization, let alone legalization, in the hinterlands of El Paso, he took a pass in Washington. Kind of like Reyes.<br /><br />In fact, in 2017,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2020">a bill was introduced in the House</a>&nbsp;to force the Drug Enforcement Administration to move marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3. The bill has three co-sponsors in addition to the Congresscritter who introduced the bill. None of them is named Beto O'Rourke. The sponsor, Congressman Gaetz,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2017/04/06/house-section/article/H2769-5">even spoke about the bill</a>&nbsp;on the floor.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2015/02/13/how-to-reschedule-marijuana-and-why-its-unlikely-anytime-soon/">Per Brookings,</a>&nbsp;rescheduling down to Schedule 2, though it might mean less to state governments, would have at least symbolic value. As for what Brookings states about many people in officialdom worries about international law obligations, I believe Canada just legalized pot nationwide, becoming official Oct. 17. And&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis">nearly 50 countries</a>&nbsp;have decriminalized it. The horse is out the barn door.<br /><br />==<br /><br />This is kind of similar to the Cares act that got moderately more support in the Senate. That said, it would only have moved pot down to Schedule II. There's a fair difference between Schedule II and Schedule III, per <a href="https://medshadow.org/resource/drug-classifications-schedule-ii-iii-iv-v/">this list</a> of federal schedules.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/Z5CXwfY4oiM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/Z5CXwfY4oiM/beto-bob-orourke-doesnt-walk-walk-on.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/08/beto-bob-orourke-doesnt-walk-walk-on.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-5085332565259345257Sat, 12 Jan 2019 14:30:00 +00002019-01-12T14:53:02.744-06:00minimum wagePelosi (Nancy)Rall (Ted)Warren (Elizabeth)Ted Rall hits one of his more wrong moments on minimum wage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://22i18l42a516x0glw28vyk8x4k.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1-6-19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://22i18l42a516x0glw28vyk8x4k.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/1-6-19.jpg" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="720" height="295" width="400" /></a></div>Besides not fully understanding the First Amendment (charitable version) or being a sort of butt-hurt solipsist (less charitable but more realistic version, based on a long past history of his) in his suit against the LA Times for canning him, petulancy that is now nearly 18 years old (go <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/07/rall-vs-popehat.html">here</a> for my take on Popehat's takedown), Ted Rall has other moments a-plenty of flat-out wrongness about American issues.<br /><br />(Notably, the cluelessness is more often about domestic issues. When he takes controversial stands on foreign policy, he's relatively more likely to be right. Not that that means a whole lot.)<br /><br />His latest? Per the above cartoon?&nbsp;<a href="http://rall.com/comic/elizabeth-warren-minimum-wage-too-low">Saying</a> the US <b>"really"</b> should have a $25/hour minimum wage, or <b>"really really"</b> should have one of $80 an hour. Ted has since <a href="http://rall.com/2019/01/11/here-is-the-progressive-agenda">doubled down</a> on the BS in his most recent syndicated column.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>According to ... ShadowStats.com [no actual link to individual piece by Ted] $22 in 2013 comes to at least $35 today.</i></blockquote>It does not, except in such a seemingly febrile mind. The idea that an actual inflation rate, per CPI (and not core CPI) which has not gone over 2.1 percent <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-inflation-rate-history-by-year-and-forecast-3306093">anywhere in the 2014-18 period</a> and had an average during that time of just 1.52 percent, is <b>"really"</b> 10 percent is bullshit. It's like claiming that not only is the Department of Labor's official unemployment rate of 3.9 percent on the U-3 numbers is wrong (and it is), but that the U-6 numbers of 7.6 percent are also wrong, and the "real" unemployment in the US is 15 percent or more.<br /><br />So, IF I accept Ted's claim that we <b>"really"</b> (that's going in scare quotes every time now, Ted) <b>"should"</b> (ditto) have had a minimum wage of $22 an hour in 2013, your $35 an hour in 2019 still doesn't follow. Per actual CPI, that minimum wage should be $23.71. Even if you claim the CPI is wrong by 100 percent? That minimum wage should still be just $25.44.<br /><br />His Gollum-precious ShadowStats, to be a bit more generous, claimed an inflation rate of almost 10 percent in 2011, Ted. That's just triple the official CPI for the year of 3.0 percent. So, let's do this once more, tripling the CPI for each year of 2014, normal compounding (unless Ted has some "shadow compounding" to pull out of somewhere) and see what we have.<br /><br />We still <b>"really"</b> only get up to $27.47.<br /><br />At this point, Ted is clearly, from my perspective, pulling numbers out of either thin air or his ass. Your choice as to which, Ted. Oh, and to punk and troll Ted just a bit more, your precious ShadowStats is behind a capitalist paywall. Oh, you running dog capitalist lackey.<br /><br />Speaking of? Ted, if you <b>"really"</b> cared about minimum wage and related employee issues, you wouldn't have donations to you laundered through a charity with heavy ties to USPIRG and to Fund for the Public Interest, which has been <b>successfully</b> (not SLAPP-reverse failed) sued multiple times for employment law violations. And yes, Ted and fanbois, your final stop laundromat, Sustainable Markets Foundation, <a href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/sustainable-markets-foundation/">has just such connections</a>. Not to mention having the word "markets" in its title.<br /><br />I've broken up my Twitter thread related to his individual cartoon about his stupidity into individual tweets, with bits of commentary in between.<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Ted Rall is simply wrong (not the first time by any means) when he says today's minimum wage, based on the 1960s, "really" should be $25, or even $80 an hour. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MinimumWage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MinimumWage</a> <a href="https://t.co/jmyHtKW49V">https://t.co/jmyHtKW49V</a></div>— @realDonaldTrump&nbsp; 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1082334499604742145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote><div>Wishes and reality are two different things, Ted, just as your LA Times suit has shown. I won't repeat old jokes about having one thing in one hand and another in the other.</div><div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">First, Elizabeth Warren was likewise also wrong with her $22/hour <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MinimumWage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MinimumWage</a>.</div>— @realDonaldTrump&nbsp; 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1082334500703686657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote></div><div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div></div><div>Also not the first or last time she's been wrong. That said, on this particular issue, per her past, she should know better than Ted for a reason I'll note below.</div><div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Second, this page and its chart are representative of thousands of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RealNews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RealNews</a> websites. Adjusted for inflation, from the minimum wage's peak, it should be at $9-10/hour today. <a href="https://t.co/tzQxXiIQyy">https://t.co/tzQxXiIQyy</a></div>— @realDonaldTrump&nbsp; 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1082334501538332675?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote></div><div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thedigeratilife.com/images/federal-minimum-wage-history.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.thedigeratilife.com/images/federal-minimum-wage-history.jpg" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="600" height="263" width="400" /></a></div><div>I am going to post that chart I am talking about, to give us a clear visual.</div><div><br /></div><div>Seems pretty clear to me, at least.</div><div><br /></div><div>We should also note that the web post I linked to cites the Economic Policy Institute for some of its discussion. The EPI bats left of center on economic issues in general, so don't claim that I am citing some sort of wingnut piece.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Tis true that one's a few years old, but <a href="https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/items/1960-united-states-minimum-wage">here's a table </a>that runs through 2018 that says the same.</div><div><br /></div><div>Next?</div><div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Third, increased productivity, plus increasing urbanization of America, might allow for a bump to the $15/hour currently talked about, but .... more than that?</div>— @realDonaldTrump&nbsp; 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1082334502674972672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote></div><div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div></div><div>We are now at the point where Ted is simply phoning it in.</div><div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Third, Pt 2, increased productivity might allow for some bump, but ... measuring increased productivity on web-based jobs is a mug's game. That ignores the whole issue of bots making the Net not real, and you and I checking Book of Face repeatedly at work.</div>— @realDonaldTrump&nbsp; 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1082334504075886594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote></div><div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div></div><div>And, that's the refudiation, nickel version, to Ted phoning it in.</div><div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Fourth, clearly neither .<a href="https://twitter.com/TedRall?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TedRall</a> nor .<a href="https://twitter.com/elizabethwarren?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ElizabethWarren</a> have ever visited what remains of small-town America. $15/hour would gut it; $22/hour (let alone Ted's nutbar $80) would destroy it.</div>— @realDonaldTrump&nbsp; 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1082334505116020738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote></div><div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div></div><div>Actually, not true, but the Tweet stays, to tie in with my point above.</div><div><br /></div><div>Warren, of course, grew up in small-town Oklahoma, which means that on the sociological side, she has even less excuse than Rall for such uninformed blather.</div><div><br /></div><div>My stance comes in this last tweet:</div><div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Fifth, this is why I favor Oregon's $15/$12/$10 urban/suburban/rural split on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/minimumwage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#minimumwage</a></div>— @realDonaldTrump&nbsp; 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/SocraticGadfly/status/1082334506051346433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote></div><div><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div></div><div>I don't know exactly how Oregon defines urban, suburban and rural in its law. Here in Texas, would Collin County be urban or suburban? Grayson County or Hunt Count suburban or rural? The idea is correct in general, though.</div><div><br /></div><div>After we get something like that nationally? We then, per that table and graph above, institute a COLA. I faulted Nancy Pelosi for not doing that when she and her House Dems last raised the minimum wage.<br /><br />As for Rall? In this case, in my opinion, it's not "just" the mix of laziness and willfulness that characterizes many of his columns, as well as both the content and drawing style of his cartoons.<br /><br />I personally can't see this one as anything but deliberate lying. The statistics are out there in factual form, not Rall's distorted versions.<br /><br />That's only increased by Rall's response on Twitter that he spends plenty of time in small town America. Then, in addition to telling apparent lies about the minimum wage, he doesn't actually care about small-town America, I guess. He's either exaggerating downward the size of places he's visited or else engaged in other exaggeration. Given his clear misstatements on the actuality of the minimum wage, whatever the exaggeration, IMO it's surely deliberate, though.<br /><br />The per-capital income for the entire state of Mississippi is about $23,000, Median HOUSEHOLD income is about $43,000, less than one person working full time at $22/hour, Ted. So, if you <b>"really"</b> spend a lot of time in small-town America, you haven't <b>"really"</b> learned anything about <b>"real"</b> economic stats you <b>"should"</b> know.<br /><br />In other words? Ted, I don't trust you. And others who do, the remaining fanboys, shouldn't.<br /><br />(And, speaking of, per your suit against the LA Times? THIS is why they don't carry you any more. Idiotic mendacities and made-up information.)<br /><br />Let's look at his past, too.<br /><br />Among Ted's other larger mistakes in both domestic and foreign affairs?<br /><br />The biggest was <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/03/malaysia-flight-370-news-of-march-17.html">his whopper</a> claiming Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 actually landed safe and sound in Kazakhstan, which he doubled down on for some time.<br /><br />Then there was <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/11/feel-some-new-schadenfreude-for-glenn_8.html">claiming</a> Glenn Greenwald is a liberal. (He's become more librul on some things, but like Mark Ames and others, I consider him a libertarian just like his boss, Omidyar.)<br /><br />Other ideas of his, which sounded deeply different at the time just sound dumb now. Like <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/07/ted-rall-draft-not-hire-cops.html">drafting cops</a>. (That would probably also be unconstitutional, or very close to it. Certainly a violation of the spirit of the 13th Amendment.)<br /><br />I used to halfway agree with <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/03/abortion-gordian-knot-for-many-liberals.html">his ideas on abortion</a>, but have moved away from that now. Semantically, he's probably wrong, if he's going to stick that route, on using "murder" rather than "manslaughter" in many such cases. "Human life" may not be defined — or definable — as starkly as he would have it, either.<br /><br />Trivialization by hyperbole is what he does here, is perhaps the best way to explain it.<br /><br />Or else, gotcha by outrageous statement, like some of his editorial cartoons.<br /><br />Basically, because he had, pre-9/11, traveled to Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, and had good insights overall on invading Afghanistan, and because he pissed off Hillbots already in 2008, I read him fairly credulously until the Flight 370 and Greenwald. The flight issue, and his stubbornness revealed on it, showed a new side. Then, per the Popehat link up top, I learned a lot more about him in comments there.<br /><br />(I'm also in the middle of reading a book about pre 9/11 travels to Afghanistan that is almost certainly more realistic than whatever Rall wrote.)<br /><br />Finally, if Warren made such idiotic claims, then, as a member of the really reality-based community, I see that as another strike against her presidential campaign. (Hiring Hillary Clinton's 2016 communications team would be another.)<br /><br />==<br /><br />This reminds me — once or twice a year I do a blog post when I do a major blogroll cleanup. Maybe I need to do one explaining those who I keep, even or especially when I disagree with them a fair amount.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/51aaVH8ivYo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/51aaVH8ivYo/ted-rall-hits-one-of-his-more-wrong.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/ted-rall-hits-one-of-his-more-wrong.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-2561353094727985494Fri, 11 Jan 2019 13:23:00 +00002019-01-21T12:19:34.729-06:002020 electionsEarly 2020 Democratic presidential oddsmaking<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.infoplease.com/images/party_democrat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="189" data-original-width="160" src="https://www.infoplease.com/images/party_democrat.jpg" /></a></div>Yeah, yeah.<br /><br />On one hand, it's way too early for this, amirite?<br /><br />On the other hand, when a bland neoliberal Hispanic former mayor and former Obama cabinet backbencher named Julian Castro actually thinks he has a shot, no, not too early.<br /><br />So, three things.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxTIFzUWoAUOqPO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="800" height="318" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxTIFzUWoAUOqPO.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>First, I'll give you oddsmaking.<br /><br />Second, I'll give you his or her likely target audience.<br /><br />Third, as a Green-leaner, I'll give a letter grade based on my take on the acceptability of their political stances and related issues.<br /><br />Note: Odds may go over 100 percent total because they would change in reality with candidates dropping out, etc.<br /><br />So, let's start, with ...<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #990000;">Julian Castro!</span></b>&nbsp;[Officially declared candidates, and those with official exploratory committees are in red.] Odds: 0.1 percent. Target: People with the last name of Castro. Like factor: D.<br /><br />(Note: On people with perceived higher odds, I'll give more of a breakout. At least as much as for Julian in the paragraph above.) And so, in no particular further order ...<br /><br /><b>Joe Biden:</b> Odds 10 percent. (Don't overestimate those early Iowa polls.) Biden has the pluses of being a better establishmentarian candidate than Hillary Clinton and ties to the Obama coattails, and may be seen as more progressive than is actually true. Minuses are being almost as old as Bernie Sanders, being gaffe-prone, being Sen-MBNA on bankruptcy tightening 15 years ago, and lots of #MeToo baggage beginning with but not limited to the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Target: DNC establishment and DNC superdelegates if a brokered convention happens. Like factor: D-minus.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #990000;">Kamala Harris:</span></b> Odds 12 percent. Has the pluses of being a minority and a woman both, especially in the MeToo era. Has baggage of outright ConservaDem past on criminal justice issues as Cal AG and playing footsie with Mnuchin outlet on banksters and Great Recession. Has advantage of limited Senate legislation paper trail. <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/kamala-harris-life-career-california-senator/">Go here for a good roundup</a> of everything about Kamala the Cop; take some of the non-Cop bullet points with a grain of salt. Target: Slightly more liberal Cory Booker voters. Like factor: C-minus.<br /><br /><b>Cory Booker:</b> Odds 7 percent. Has pluses of being a minority. Has baggage of <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/01/bigpharma-and-neoliberal-bullshit-from.html">footsie with Big Pharma</a>, of many "poseur" stances (he's a weathervane in a field filled with them), and lack of a Senate legislation paper trail for his length of time in office. Target: Slightly more conservative Kamala Harris voters. Is working on "what to run for" issue by getting New Jersey Legislature to consider an "LBJ bill" so he can also file for Senate re-election. Like factor: D-minus.<br /><br /><b>Robert Francis O'Rourke:</b> Odds: 10 percent. Pluses include recent Senate campaign, Beltway stenos and even more, Beltway neoliberal think tanks rallying to him and vague "winnability" issue. Minusus include issue-free Senate campaign being exposed along with ConservaDem House record. Target: White Obamiacs from 2008 and 2012. Like factor: D-minus. (<a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/beto-orourke-looks-like-hes-headed-for-iowa-11518427">Per Stephen Young</a>, expect an announcement by the end of January.)<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #990000;">Kirsten Gillibrand:</span></b> Odds: 12 percent. Pluses include MeToo actions to the degree they were genuine and some actual legislation history. Plus/minus is "bipartisanship." Minuses include seemingly unsavory nature of pushing Al Franken out the door and ConservaDem past, especially on guns. Target: Conservative wing of 2016 Sanders voters plus women in general. Like factor: D.<br /><br /><b>Bernie Sanders:</b> Odds: 16 percent. Pluses include previous campaign history, plus him moving slightly leftward again on foreign policy. (Wake me up a year from now re Israel and BDS issues.) Minuses include the downside of previous campaign history, plus no "Hillary voted for Iraq and spoke to Goldman Sachs" easy campaign targets. Minuses from a Green POV include that he's still way too much of a military Keynesian. Additional baggage of age. See my posts about him and F-35s. Like factor: B-minus. (I'm not grading on a curve, but you can compare his grade with other Dems.)<br /><br /><b>Sherrod Brown:</b> Odds: 9 percent. Pluses include being from the Midwest, perception as a kinder, gentler Bernie Sanders and related matters. Minuses include no hot single issues from his Senate time, long enough for him to have developed one, and being more Fauxgressive than Progressive. Like factor: C-minus.<br /><br /><b>Michael Bloomberg:</b> Odds: 1 percent. (This odds is as a Democrat only; I in no way rule out him making an independent run in the general election.) Pluses include perceived liberalism, especially on climate and environment through things such as the soda tax, claims to appeal to centrist independents in general election. Minuses include bankster background and everything related. Target: Democratic establishment, slightly more conservative Howard Schultz voters. Like factor? Hell,. F.<br /><br /><b>Howard Schultz:</b> Odds 1 percent. Pluses include perceived liberalism, history of Starbucks, connections with Starbucks patrons. Minuses include downside of Starbucks history, especially with black patrons. Target: Dem establishment, slightly more liberal Michael Bloomberg voters. Like factor: D.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dv_7fjIVAAEV_f-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="800" height="117" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dv_7fjIVAAEV_f-.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="color: #990000;">Elizabeth Warren:</span> </b>Odds 8 percent. Pluses? A woman in the MeToo era, perceived as liberal to left-liberal economically. Minuses include her Cherokee Nation baggage, that she's not as liberal on as many things as believed and that she's anti-BDS. Also, per her "I'm having a beer" NYE Instagram video, a too-transparent sense of earnestness, possibly coupled with a too-transparent sense of pandering to Millennials with that as an Instagram rather than Facebook video. Additional minus is that she reportedly has hired comms staff from Hillary 2016. Politically unastute plus they were hacks. Like factor? C-minus (and dropping with the Hillary news). Thanks to Daily Wire or whoever gave that graphic to somebody connected to Trump, who then Tweeted it.<br /><br /><b>Steve Bullock: </b>Odds: 3 percent. Pluses include being a governor, and thus an executive and also thus, no Senate paper trail. Minuses start with being a moderate white male. Target: New Dems in general, and specifically, ones who want to target the heartland, and slightly more conservative John Hickenlooper candidates. Like factor: C.<br /><br /><b>John Hickenlooper: </b>Odds: 4 percent. Pluses include being a governor of a larger, more purplish state than Montana, and thus an executive and also thus, no Senate paper trail. Minuses are more prominent than Bullock's and include his in-the-tank support for fracking, plus his 2008 DNC actions while Denver mayor for those with longer memories. Target: New Dems in general, and specifically, ones who want to target the heartland, and slightly more liberal Steve Bullock voters. Like factor: D-minus.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #990000;">John Delaney:</span></b> Odds: Less than Julian Castro. Pluses besides being first to file? None. Minusus? Bland older white guy from exurban Congressional district. Plus/minus: Looks like a bald, blander Will Ferrell. Target: Cabinet position in next Dem presidency and staying in longer than Julian Castro. Like factor: Not even registered.<br /><br /><b>Jay Inslee:</b> Odds: 9 percent. Pluses include being a governor and one with more liberal stances on climate issues than Bullock or Hickenlooper. Plugged in more than either of them as well. Minuses include relatively unknown level to many Democrats, being from a fairly "safe" state and not a huge record. Like factor: C.<br /><br /><b>Tim Ryan: </b>Odds: 3 percent. Pluses include perception of willingness to take on House Dem establishment. Minuses will include his Blue Dog-ish record and trying to run from the House. Like factor: D.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #990000;">Tulsi Gabbard:</span></b> Odds: 4 percent. Political pluses (note that caveat) include Sanders connections, especially if he does not run, a Kool-Aid stronger than Beto's, perhaps, and definite support from people like H.A. Goodman who haven't done the full Bernie-to-Trump but are definitely the conservative faction of BernieBros. General pluses are willingness to take on Dem establishment. Minuses are basically everything I've said above under political pluses plus the fact she still, Kool-Aid drinkers aside, appears to back Islamophobia, and that she's as much a political re-inventor as Trump. That's all true, and I've blogged about her Hindu nationalist fascist bromance <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2016/03/sandernistas-tulsi-gabbard-bigotry.html">three full years ago</a>, and now, like Beto, about <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/drinking-tulsi-gabbard-kool-aid-and.html">her Kool-Aid drinkers plus Kool-Aid brewer Michael Tracey</a>.&nbsp;Targets: The conservative portion of the Sanders movement. Like factor: D-plus.<br /><b><br /></b><b>Jeff Merkley:</b> Odds: 3 percent. Pluses include being a general progressive for a Democrat and good on climate change in particular. Minuses include being no more than a typical progressive Dem on foreign policy. Target: Sanders voters. Like factor: C-plus.<br /><br /><b>Hillary Clinton:</b> Odds: 2 percent. (Yes, that high.) Pluses include support of think tanks, Donut Twitter, diehard PUMAs, etc. Minuses include being Hillary Clinton and her past campaign baggage, both 2008 primaries and 2016 general. Additional baggage of age. Target: 2016 Hillary Clinton voters plus a few more voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Like factor: F-minus.<br /><br /><b>Amy Klobuchar: </b>Odds: 1 percent. Pluses? Lemme think. Minuses would be being behind two or three other women senators and being older than two of them, as well as being seen as less progressive than all three. Target: Hillary Clinton backers who wouldn't vote for one of those other women. Like factor: D.<br /><br /><b>Terry McAuliffe:</b> Odds: More than Julian Castro and John Delaney, less than anybody else. Pluses: Was a governor. Minuses: Way too much personal political baggage plus way too much Clintonista baggage. Target audience: Clintonistas.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #990000;">Marianne Williamson:</span> </b>Odds: Not a ghost of a chance or even a New Agey ghost of a chance. (I'd forgotten that there had been noises about her until she was mentioned on someone else's blog. But she even has an exploratory committee and website.) Pluses: Not a politician. "Peace" imagery. Minuses: All her baggage as a New Age nutter. Target audience: People who think "A Course in Miracles" is real. Like factor: Probably on the non-New Agey angle, a B; including it, a D-minus.<br /><br />Among actual or potential candidates with more of a chance, how do they affect each other? Brown is possibly the main beneficiary of Sanders not running, if Brown does. Gabbard is second (for now) and Warren a distant third. Bullock and Hickenlooper obviously affect each other; both affect and are affected by Inslee to a lesser extent. Booker and Harris, with both being minority candidates, and in somewhat similar political silos, affect each other. Gillibrand interplays with Warren and Harris, and Klobuchar if she runs, and possibly also with Sanders.<br /><br />If O'Rourke runs, he probably benefits most from Booker, the only other younger charismatic male in the race, dropping out. Not sure who benefits most if Robert Francis runs then drops out.<br /><br />==<br /><br />As of right now, I don't expect Sen. Amy Klobuchar to run. I don't expect any Democratic governors or ex-governors besides those mentioned above, from a thin Dem ranks in statehouses, to enter the race. I think Tom Steyer is less likely than Schultz or Bloomberg. (Update: Steyer has officially said he'd prefer to blow billions, if necessary, on trying to impeach Trump instead of potentially blowing billions on a prez campaign.)<br /><br />I think other businesscritters are less likely yet.<br /><br />And, that includes Mark Zuckerberg, who has too much Facebook mess to clean up in the next 12 months to have a chance. (Notice how buzz about his possible candidacy has died off in recent months?)<br /><br />==<br /><br />It's also "amazing" (not really) how narrowly the New York Times defined "diversity" in talking about possible candidates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/29/us/politics/2020-democratic-candidates-kamala-elizabeth-warren.html">trying to get an early start</a>. Sanders is a secularist of some sort, but there's no real atheists. Harris, despite her part-Indian ancestry, is Christian. Tulsi Gabbard is Hindu, of course. As noted above, none are "diverse" in terms of thinking outside the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. None, despite Bernie's mild democratic socialism and falsely calling himself a socialist in 2016, is there any "diversity" outside of broad tenets of modern neoliberal-influenced capitalism.<br /><br />There's certainly no huge diversity in governance issues. None of the Democratic candidates has talked about amending the Constitution to abolish the electoral college, despite two presidential split decisions this century. Certainly, none has promoted ideas such as any form of instant-runoff voting or proportional representation among their state's U.S. House or state legislature delegations.<br /><br />==<br /><br />Finally, with Dem changes on superdelegates, is there some chance of a brokered convention? Yes, but not much Put it at 5 percent; note how wide open the GOP race was in 2016 but how much it converged well before the last round of primaries.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/kMEfgG_zgE8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/kMEfgG_zgE8/early-2020-democratic-presidential.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/early-2020-democratic-presidential.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-2712887125697058179Thu, 10 Jan 2019 12:35:00 +00002019-01-17T07:40:47.074-06:00carbon taxGreen PartyOccupy Wall StreetThe Green New Deal vs The Green New DealLet's start this off by stipulating that the DSA roses' "Green New Deal"&nbsp;<a href="https://popularresistance.org/the-political-fraud-of-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-green-new-deal/?fbclid=IwAR3IQqf8o1KsbrAJRUTHnrCd2PumcSZ5x0z1Lzf8IdzlObMojlSkckenee8">is a pale imitation</a>&nbsp;of the Green Party's offering.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/29/sorry-democrats-the-green-party-came-up-with-the-green-new-deal/">Andrew Stewart also talks about</a>&nbsp;the original Green New Deal at Counterpunch. Carl Beijer (who allegedly worked on two Nader campaigns) says, "but the Democrats are the first to talk about the global climate issue."<br /><br />That may well be true.<br /><br />At the same time, it's not "the Democrats," Carl; it's a small subsection of Democrats, not a party stance. And, per those links, we'll see how well that small segment does at avoiding being co-opted by national leadership.<br /><br />Indeed, the face of the Roses, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has continued to move rightward since lauding John McCain and backing away from BDS-related issues, as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/corporations-see-a-different-kind-of-green-in-ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal/253076/#.XBpsBTSA-sM.twitter">this longform from Mint Press</a>&nbsp;notes.<br /><br />Mint Press focuses on the Green New Deal and how it is, at bottom, fauxgressive. It mentions things like entrepreneurialism and other neolib buzz words, and looks like it would be entirely open to a carbon cap-and-trade, not tax and tariff, as the primary government "tool." And, that is even before Speaker Pelosi guts it. The piece also notes the GND of the Roses is a plan to work on a plan much more than an actual plan.<br /><br />OTOH,&nbsp;<span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot;;">I would support&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.carlbeijer.com/2018/12/the-green-new-deal-is-good-plan-its-not.html" style="font-family: times;">Carl Beijer's idea</a><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot;;">&nbsp;of a more socialist Green New Deal than the Roses (or the US Green Party, I think he's right) have offered.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot;;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot;;">For New York Greens, <a href="https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2019/01/the-green-new-deal-new-york-needs-from-its-original-source/">Howie Hawkins gets that right</a> when he notes that a real Green New Deal needs that, and adds that during World War II, with its analogies, FDR nationalized 25 percent of American industry. Speaking of, Stan Cox at Counterpunch notes that led to a massive new emission of carbon dioxide in <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/17/that-green-growth-at-the-heart-of-the-green-new-deal-its-malignant/">his own call</a> for a true Green New Deal to go beyond capitalism.</span><br /><br />Andrew Stewart&nbsp;<a href="http://washingtonbabylon.com/am-i-the-skunk-at-the-progressive-garden-party-or-just-not-buying-progressive-democratic-hype/">also remains skeptical</a>&nbsp;of the AOC "wave election" and other things related to it.<br /><br />Meanwhile, in "mainstream progressive" media, the likes of Emma Vigeland claims that John Cornyn&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/EmmaVigeland/status/1078035402450259975">supports a carbon tax</a>&nbsp;(which she insinuates is in AOC's version of a Green New Deal). First, I found multiple examples from Cornyn's Twitter feed showing her wrong (and politely let her know). Second, per both&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez">Vox</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/article/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-bipartisan-carbon-tax/">Grist</a>, it seems fairly clear that the nebulous GND proposed by AOC and allies doesn't have a carbon tax. Some of their think-tank allies are in outright opposition.<br /><br />Per Grist, I don't see a massive expansion of renewables without a hammer of the carbon tax forcing it. Ending all onshore and offshore oil drilling on federal lands to try to force us out of internal combustion engines, or at least those without hybrid drives, won't do enough to #KeepItInTheGround in the US, let alone doing nothing about foreign oil. And, of course, that's where a carbon tariff (which the GND doesn't come close to mentioning) is part of the picture.<br /><br />The biggest of "allies," or actually a progenitor, is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sunrisemovement.org/">Sunrise Movement</a>. Its homepage looks even whiter than the Green Party, despite its acknowledgement that much of climate change will hit poor of all ethnicities and especially minorities. The ambitious goals it lists,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-optimistic-activists-for-a-green-new-deal-inside-the-youth-led-singing-sunrise-movement">per the New Yorker</a>, seem unobtainable without major funding for it. Major funding. And a carbon tax would help until much of this was in place.<br /><br />If even more tax credits to renewables is a small part of the deal, fine. But, that alone won't lead to a ramp-up of the size needed to get us driving electric vehicles, as well as running our computers on renewable electricity. And, what about the Dick Cheney sneered-at "conservation"? What if we can't ramp up car batteries without massive environmental degradation? What if, in some ways, the world has peaked? I'm leery, from seeing things like a "smart grid" touted as a major part of the solution (overhauls of the current electric grid ARE needed, but the grid is already relatively smart as far as "switching") that we've got a dollop or three of salvific technologism running around here.<br /><br />I am also distrustful of any organization which won't list its leadership on its website. Some of the founders claim inspiration from the Occupy movement, or Black Lives Matters. In both cases, we see what has happened with actual or alleged lack of leadership. The original Occupy at Zucotti Park had leadership, despite denials; I've written about that before. Black Lives Matter truly appears to be more leaderless, and by 2020, will probably have dissipated much of its original energy. (In fact, co-founder Evan Weber <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060108439">was part of Occupy</a>. At least he admits it had leadership problems. The real truth is <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-myth-of-leaderlessness-of-occupy.html">Occupy had leaders</a> who tried to get others to believe the leaderlessness myth. It eventually <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/10/occupy-decides-to-join-banksters.html">sold out to Wall Street</a>; remember that, when you see $20 T-shirts; a Sunrise <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/10/occupy-brands-itself-could-rip-people.html">Occupy-style debit card</a> could be next. Occupy also had a <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2011/10/ows-young-white-well-educated-latte.html">1 percenter problem</a>.<br /><br />Also, none of the Sunrise Movement have acknowledged ripping off the Green Party, or even really acknowledged its existence. Related big question: If there's a ConservaDem in a general election, after a failed primarying attempt, will it endorse Greens when they're running? SPUSAers or whomever, if Greens aren't available in a particular district?<br /><br />And more research. Stephen O'Hanlon's&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downingtown,_Pennsylvania">Downingtown</a>&nbsp;is semi-ritzy. The man&nbsp;<a href="http://ohanlonlawfirm.com/about.html">I presume is his dad</a>&nbsp;would appear to have a ritzy yet small-scale law practice.<br /><br />And, at least one claim, per its Twitter feed? To eliminate all greenhouse gases by 2030? Since cow farts are greenhouse gases, unless Sunrise makes the entire country vegetarian, that simply ain't happening.<br /><br />But, per the tweet embedded below, that is exactly the claim.<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">NEW: <a href="https://twitter.com/SenBooker?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenBooker</a> is backing the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GreenNewDeal?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GreenNewDeal</a>.<br /><br />That means:<br /><br />✅ Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2030<br />✅ Investing in communities on the frontlines of poverty &amp; pollution<br />✅ Guaranteeing a good job to anyone ready to make this happen <a href="https://t.co/d5auk7FGFq">pic.twitter.com/d5auk7FGFq</a></div>— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) <a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/status/1073668465129607168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 14, 2018</a></blockquote>I also find it interesting that Sunrise Movement's <a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt">Twitter account</a> says it was started in September 2013 ... which is long before the Sunrise Movement was allegedly started. (Both the "@" and the actual name are Sunrise-related, as you can see in the embedded Tweet, so it's not like it originally started as something else.<br /><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><br />Finally, do not cite Modern Monetary Theory as a magic wand to pay for all of this. I consider that some left-liberals, and a few leftists, version of snake oil or voodoo economics. Unless you find a magic way to eliminate the bond market as well, it doesn't work that way. It's one of my biggest disagreements with Michael Hudson, for the amount of good he has to say otherwise on economics.<br /><br />Finally, none of this distinction between the GREEN New Deal and the Green New Deal matters as much, arguably, as the fact that Speaker Pelosi and House Democratic leadership allies of hers <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/423492-house-dems-formalize-climate-committee-plans-without-green-new-deal">gutted the powers and mandate</a> of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.<br /><br />And, the chair of that committee, Kathy Castor, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/15/the-trouble-with-the-green-new-deal-223977">is now talking about</a> how "woke" Dear Leader was on climate change in his 2009 stimulus bill. Since that bill fell short on stimulus help, let's be honest and note that while it did "something" green, the something it did was entirely neoliberal, markets focused. (Of course, per all of the above, the AOC GND has too much of that itself.)<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/sUU7q1ky3OM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/sUU7q1ky3OM/the-green-new-deal-vs-green-new-deal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-green-new-deal-vs-green-new-deal.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-5513032937726123597Tue, 08 Jan 2019 19:03:00 +00002019-01-08T20:31:06.941-06:00Dallas Morning Newsnewspaper outsourcingnewspapersThe Dallas Morning News is Snoozing toward GomorrahHaving spent most of the previous decade at a group of suburban Dallas weeklies, I'm long familiar with the Morning News and have long called it the Snooze.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/proxy/ya-R9jPpE4M33lSfj0ndxZweNReZSK7BltrStD3DZz1XaGU7lsc0k_asZGv4wABmJKpQg1iwn-x_uOT600xlhFlpXvv1OrQ=s0-d" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/proxy/ya-R9jPpE4M33lSfj0ndxZweNReZSK7BltrStD3DZz1XaGU7lsc0k_asZGv4wABmJKpQg1iwn-x_uOT600xlhFlpXvv1OrQ=s0-d" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A $24.99 T-shirt that used to be, at least, on sale<br /><a href="http://store.dallasnews.com/">at the Snooze Store</a>! And, since the pic is off a<br />hyperlink, not direct upload, presumably the, no THE,<br />Dallas Morning News is still engaged in late-stage<br />capitalism grifting.</td></tr></tbody></table>A.H. Belo long liked to pretend its shit didn't stink, even as it dumped some whoppers, starting with the Cue Cat! As I noted <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2015/01/dallas-morning-news-keeps-doubling-down.html">in one post</a>, that was just one of many stupidities in the online world, detailed again <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/06/medianews-i-news-sounds-like-dmns.html">here</a>. Or here, where a former Google exec <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/09/dallas-morning-news-hits-new-online.html">presumed Snooze readers</a> would be unaware of the existence of AdBlock. (I know this "ads-free viewing" is still around today, but often with "hard" screens if you either don't pay or else don't turn off AdBlock. OTOH, many other places, like the Snooze then, had "soft" tut-tut screens.)<br /><br />Those stupidities have real-world effect.<br /><br />It's whacked&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/business/the-dallas-morning-news/2019/01/07/dallas-morning-news-lays-43-company-struggles-revenue-declines">another 40-plus people</a>&nbsp;as ad sales continue to slip. (A 7.5 percent adhole on Christmas Eve,&nbsp;per my tracking of them, is horrendous, so this isn't a made-up problem. And, as is my wont, that counts obits as adhole inches.)<br /><br />That's not the worst.<br /><br />Giving 40 top execs&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/BySteveReilly/status/1082360989402783744">$1.2 million in bonuses</a>&nbsp;for a good financial management job achieved in part by whacking people? SEC link <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1413898/000119312518089336/d519824dpre14a.htm#tx519824_11">here</a>.<br /><br />THAT is the worst.<br /><br />But, unsurprising. Also not surprising is the hypocrisy of publisher Grant Moise with his hand-wringing, when he got nearly $500K in stock options, bonuses and that management goals compensation — that alone being $250K. CFO Katy Murray got $100K just for the realignment. (And, <a href="https://www.centraltrack.com/dallas-morning-news-lays-off-five-employees/">this isn't the first time</a> this issue has popped up.)<br /><br />Weird are some of the positions that were NOT cut until this round. Example? The Snooze killed its Sunday book review pages, part of what used to be a full-section Sunday Review, a decade ago. But, it still had a books editor, even if part-time or freelance?<br /><br />Sidebar: This may, or may not, be connected to <a href="https://www.centraltrack.com/dallas-morning-news-lays-off-43-employees/">a hedge fund buying a chunk of the Snooze</a>. And, if you thought the paper already was slouching toward Gomorrah, that would be the kiss of death.<br /><br />Three years ago, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-rise-and-fall-of-dallas-morning.html">I looked at</a> the background of executive editor Mike Wilson and managing editor Robyn Tomlin and saw beancounters at bottom. More on Tomlin <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-decline-and-fall-of-dallas-morning.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Meanwhile, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-dallas-morning-news-slouches.html">as late as the most recent election</a>, its op-ed stances continued to dig in determinedly into the right-hand batter's box only, despite all of Dallas County clearly tilting blue now, and the first ring of suburbs in Collin getting at least a tint of purple.<br /><br />And, the Snooze has less and less room for further error.<br /><br />Having outsourced its pagination to Gatehouse 18 months ago, there are no copy editor jobs to cut.<br /><br />If selling the old Belo building, per the story about the layoffs, was predicated on Amazon HQ2 coming to Dallas, does that mean it's not attracting other offers? Sounds like it.<br /><br />There are no papers left in Belo besides the Snooze itself and other Dallas properties. (Some in Dallas <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2008/07/belo-deathwatch-quick-is-now-almost.html">died in failed experiments</a> almost as bad as paywall cluelessness. And the Denton Record-Chronicle disentangled itself from the Snooze last year.)<br /><br />A <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2015/12/dallas-morning-news-to-take-3rd-stab-at.html">third stab at a paywall</a> may, or may not, be successful. The reporter says the paper is still losing circ as well as ad revenue, which means that online subscriptions, if they are moving upward, aren't having a huge effect, at least not yet.<br /><br />And, the story itself is a bit dishonest, saying the cuts are 4 percent of the Snooze's Belo parent's workforce. They're far more than 4 percent of the people at the Snooze.<br /><br />As for re-invention? The Snooze has been doing that <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/04/dallas-morning-news-reinvents-ihttps://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/04/dallas-morning-news-reinvents-itself.htmltself.html">for almost a decade</a>.<br /><br />==<br /><br />That said, this is the worst ... that I know of.<br /><br />I first saw Matt's link by a quote-tweet of a quote-tweet:<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><div dir="ltr" lang="en">Gross. <a href="https://t.co/7nXumirNjQ">https://t.co/7nXumirNjQ</a></div>— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) <a href="https://twitter.com/Mike_Hixenbaugh/status/1082366146639286273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2019</a></blockquote><div>Hixenbaugh works at the Chronicle, which has had its share of controversial layoffs, even as it claims to still be making money, and even as it's owned by Hearst, which being privately traded, doesn't have to tell the SEC what sort of bonuses its execs get and why.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/5O1YhsEKlrc" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/5O1YhsEKlrc/the-dallas-morning-news-is-snoozing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-dallas-morning-news-is-snoozing.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-8473047835114229650Mon, 07 Jan 2019 18:30:00 +00002019-01-08T09:05:48.790-06:00BloggingTexas LegislatureTexas Progressives offer first hot take on 2019<!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="349" height="154" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes everyone a happy and healthy new year — and 181 Texas Legiscritters a spring of common sense — as it brings you the first roundup of 2019.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://offthekuff.com/wp">Off the Kuff</a> took a <a href="http://offthekuff.com/wp/?p=88914">closer look</a> at how the candidates for Harris County offices did in 2018.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/">SocraticGadfly</a>made a New Year's resolution for other people: <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-anti-self-help-help-for-you.html">stop reading self-help books</a> and the late-stage capitalism they're predicated on.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Here are some posts of interest from other blogs and news sites.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Alex Jones tops this year’s <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/texas-monthly-bum-steer-awards-2019">Bum Steer Awards</a> from Texas Monthly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.danielwilliamstx.com/2019/01/the-effect-of-ballot-length-on-voter.html">Daniel Williams</a> shares his research on the effect of ballot length on voter turnout.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://bettertexasblog.org/2019/01/the-comptroller-shows-us-the-money/">Better Texas Blog</a> explains the Comptroller's revenue estimate.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/01/04/state-sen-charles-schwertner-asks-give-committee-chairmanship/">Texas Tribune reports</a> that, in the wake of an inconclusive investigation into sexting from his cell phone’s number, state Sen. Charles Schwertner is giving up his committee chairmanship.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.heyelise.com/2019/01/02/resolutions-for-2019/">Elise Hu</a> presents her New Year's resolutions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Is it a hypocrisy smash-up? <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/these-rural-panhandle-towns-should-be-shrinking-but-thanks-to-immigrants-theyre-booming">Texas Observer</a> describes how many MAGA-heavy Panhandle towns would be dying — except for an influx of immigration.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The <a href="http://texaslivingwaters.org/2019-water-resolutions/">Texas Living Waters Project</a> has New Year's resolutions for all of us on water conservation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">At the Dallas Observer, taking an insightful contrarian stance in the wake of the Amber Geyger and Bothell Jean case, <a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/new-chiefs-proposed-reform-for-cop-shootings-has-big-holes-11439402">Jim Schutze explains</a> how, on police shootings, officers face sometimes-tough legal circumstances.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://juanitajean.com/new-language-in-the-trump-era/">Juanita</a>is already done with the lies about SNAP.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://blog.hmns.org/2019/01/revisiting-a-piece-of-houston-tv-history-in-the-hmns-archives/">BeyondBones</a>shares a piece of local TV history.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.dbcgreentx.net/blog/winter-adventure-tour-texas-style">David Bruce Collins</a> discusses his trip to Big Bend.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.wacotrib.com/news/courts_and_trials/johnson-sworn-in-as-new-mclennan-county-da/article_cc161336-dc3b-5d9a-945f-bf4fed2b57cf.html"><span id="goog_2132110244"></span>The Waco Trib<span id="goog_2132110245"></span></a> reports on Barry Johnson replacing Abel Reyna as McLennan DA.<br /><br />The Green Party, national and Pennsylvania state versions, hoists itself by its own decentralization key value petard <a href="http://independentpoliticalreport.com/2019/01/pa-green-party-requests-u-n-to-takeover-fukushima-reactors/">in calling for the UN to take over cleanup</a> at Japan's Fukushima reactors.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/c3msWSssI_M" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/c3msWSssI_M/texas-progressives-offer-first-hot-take.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/texas-progressives-offer-first-hot-take.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-5354072073885952324Mon, 07 Jan 2019 14:00:00 +00002019-01-07T08:00:01.284-06:00Counterfactual historyFord (Gerald)Reagan (Ronald)Alternative history: Nixon picks Rocky or Ronnie, not Jerry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1427791025l/25241663.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="230" height="320" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1427791025l/25241663.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>In 1973, after Ted Agnew resigned as Nixon's Veep as part of his plea deal on his income tax evasion charges, Tricky Dick was the first president — and the only to date, of course — to exercise the portion of the 25th Amendment on filling a vice presidential vacancy.<br /><br />We know he eventually picked Jerry Ford, of course.<br /><br />But, he had two options besides that.<br /><br />One was Nelson Rockefeller and the other was Ronald Reagan.<br /><br />(Note: While my <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/alternative-history-ronnie-runs-in-1964.html">first counterfactual</a> about Reagan running for the presidency was influenced by Bob Spitz's new Reagan bio, linked there, this one popped into mind several weeks ago when recently I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2616978657">Evan Thomas' Nixon bio</a> of a couple of years back.)<br /><br />First, the actual history. How likely was Reagan to get it?<br /><br />Not very.<br /><br />Nixon still thought of him as an intellectual lightweight, just as he did at Bohemian Grove in 1967, when both were there and Nixon had the first inkling that California's new governor might run in 1968 for the presidency. Nixon retained that feeling into the 1980s, bombarding Reagan with Cabinet nomination and foreign policy suggestions. (Nixon strongly opposed George Schultz at State, which is part of why Reagan chose Al Haig for the spot originally; when Haig left, he smartly ignored Nixon the second time around.)<br /><br />Ford was Nixon's favorite if nothing else for the reason that Nixon thought Congress would never think Ford capable of being president and thus wouldn't impeach him. WHY Nixon thought the man who had risen to be House Minority Leader would be thought incapable, Nixon never said, to the best of my knowledge.<br /><br />Of the two who finished in the cold? Nixon personally liked Rocky, and thought better of him temperamentally, than Ronnie. But, he thought Congress would think Rocky could very much be president, and thus he would not be a counterweight, unlike what Nixon thought of Ford.<br /><br />Anyway, to the counterfactual.<br /><br />Nixon nominates Reagan. Congress knows he's an even more ardent Nixonite, if anything, than Ford. It knows his reputation as a hands-off governor. But it still hopes at this time that he won't be elevated to the top spot, and it knows he has no real ethics issues. He's confirmed no sweat.<br /><br />Then, we get to Aug. 9, 1974, with actual history proceeding normally, and Ronald Wilson Reagan becomes the 38th, not the 40th, U.S. president. What happens?<br /><br />First, at least as soon, if not sooner, than Ford did, he pardons Nixon. And does so with more unseemly language, claiming Nixon was victim of a witch-hunt, etc. This backfires with him even more than Ford's pardon did in reality.<br /><br />Second, while not totally in the grip of voodoo economics, unlike 1980, he already is willing to listen to nutbar ideas in the dismal semi-science. He thinks a tax cut will help, which it might due to Keynesian reasons. He also thinks the budget needs to be balanced. He also also thinks that Nixon and Kissinger have been coddling the Russkies, that we need to stop SALT II, that we need to ramp up defense spending, and that we need to look at revising, or even jettisoning the ABM.<br /><br />Reagan has no moderating James Baker as chief of staff. Nancy does get somebody better than Ed Meese to officially be in charge of day-to-day operations, but Meese, as in 1981 and beyond, is the eminence grise. In early 1975, Kissinger resigns, or is pushed.<br /><br />This opens the floodgates to GOP challengers, who perceive Reagan as unbalanced, as having forfeited any honeymoon, and as politically vulnerable, as well as a possible boat anchor to Republican hopes. Bob Dole, Howard Baker and George H.W. Bush all jump in. So does the more moderate Charles Percy.<br /><br />Reagan's old comments on making Social Security at least partially voluntary get dredged up in the media. Reagan "obligingly" doubles down on this shortly before the New Hampshire primary, served by a second-rate, and only quasi-official, campaign staff. (John Sears, having been given an advance tip to keep his powder dry and wait for official word, runs Percy's campaign when he announces.)<br /><br />Reagan, though otherwise popular in New Hampshire, sees support crumble, with semi-next door Dole having already won (by plurality) the Iowa caucuses, followed by Percy, which has prompted other more moderate Republicans, like Charles Mathias, to either look at running or unifying behind Percy, the tacit candidate of the Rockefeller wing. Republican governors Bill Milliken and Jim Rhodes also make noises about favorite son candidacies.<br /><br />Reagan can't get all the hardcore New Hampshire conservatives behind him. He does nail down Gov. Meldrim Thompson, but Dole, fresh off Iowa, convinces publisher-kingmaker William Loeb to, if not endorsing him, to at least offer no official endorsement.<br /><br />Reagan wins by plurality in New Hampshire, but fails to break 30 percent. Dole and Percy both run strongly, followed by Baker. Bush, perceived as quasi-moderate at this time, can't break 10 percent, but vows to stay on until Texas.<br /><br />Percy appears to have the Massachusetts primary wrapped up, and likely Vermont. Others won't contest his Illinois. So, focus goes to Florida, on March 9, and North Carolina, on March 23. Baker convinces Floridians he's the new moderate-conservative southern Republican that's needed, even as a counterweight to the surging Jimmy Carter. He wins there by plurality, with Dole and Percy in an essential draw for second. Reagan's Social Security comments have him finishing even behind Bush.<br /><br />Reagan, with his Irish up, still hopes to pull out another win in North Carolina. But, despite Jesse Helms' backing, Baker does what he did in Florida. Dole is third and Bush fourth, with Percy focusing on April's Wisconsin race and beyond.<br /><br />On March 31, 1976, eight years after LBJ did the same, Reagan withdraws.<br /><br />Percy wins Wisconsin by majority and Pennsylvania by plurality. Bush finishes second to Baker in Texas, narrowly ahead of Dole. Dole pulls an upset in Indiana, edging both Percy and Baker. Baker wins Georgia.<br /><br />Bush withdraws, and it's essentially a three-person race, outside of possible favorite sons.<br /><br />With most primaries now leaving the South and going to the Midwest and West, Dole eyes making up ground, and he does.<br /><br />However, Percy, with Dole and Baker splitting conservatives, takes winner-take-all California by plurality, enough to push him over the top for the nomination.<br /><br />He names Baker his Veep choice.<br /><br />Moderate to moderate-conservative Republicanism is rescued. Percy narrowly beats Carter in 1976, but winds up a one-term president. Presumably, the Shah's health, a Carter-like response by Percy, and the taking of hostages play out as they did in actuality.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/U_JAsmvCi8s" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/U_JAsmvCi8s/alternative-history-nixon-picks-rocky.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/alternative-history-nixon-picks-rocky.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-32287608942483250Fri, 04 Jan 2019 13:05:00 +00002019-01-04T07:47:09.505-06:00pop psychologysocial psychologyMy anti-self-help help for you<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/841/1*dJAfChdFTS2MgBomX2cXWw.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="700" height="182" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/841/1*dJAfChdFTS2MgBomX2cXWw.png" width="320" /></a></div>Tis the season ....<br /><br />For a crapload of self-help books to start the new year. (Including self-help books that claim not to be. More below.)<br /><br />Ignore most of them.<br /><br />First, check blurbs.<br /><br />If somebody like Tony Robbins touts them, put them down. And run away.<br /><br />Second, look at titles or excerpts online, on authors' pages or Twitter accounts.<br /><br />If the author talks about "winning" life? Run away. That's late-stage capitalist bullshit. Beyond that, it's a sociologically and philosophically shallow. It's also an invitation to psychological problems if one is not resilient, and therefore anti-helpful.<br /><br />If the author talks about "hacking" life? Run away. It's like the above put through a Silicon Valley blender.<br /><br />If the title talks about "laws," and gives the impression their are certain immutable laws of human nature, obedience to which will improve your life? Run away. If this were true, one such book would have been written 5,000 years ago and we would all be much better off. It's like a religious claim run through the self-help world filter. (Think of AA's 12 steps, OK?) And, I'm far from alone on that pick-up; I've seen it more than once in one-star reviews by others of self-help books.<br /><br />If the title has a number in it, anywhere, like how many of these immutable laws there are? Run away. Numbers and listicles are an old marketing hack which the Internet has only made worse.<br /><br />In addition, most of these books are written for people who are comfortably over the "Kahneman line" on income — in other words, they make more than enough for money itself to be a major factor in happiness or contentment, and probably do so in pretty secure jobs. If you're working in the dying newspaper industry, or a corner of the SEO world that will soon prove to be semi-fraudulent, these books aren't for you. Unfortunately, those are often the people suckered by hopes of a quick fix.<br /><br />Let's take an example by James Clear, whose new "Atomic Habits" says one key to self-help is replacing "I have to" with "I get to."<br /><br />That may well be true. But, does it solve problems?<br /><br />Let's take a couple, of him making $33K and her $23K with three kids.<br /><br />"I get to worry about trying to save 3 percent of my income and I get to ignore saving 10 percent."<br /><br />"I get to worry about my kids getting sick because, with the amount of deductible on my insurance, we can't afford a trip to the hospital unless it really needs the ER."<br /><br />"I get to worry about finding a new job over the age of 50."<br /><br />"I get to thank James Clear for his brilliant, privileged insights."<br /><br />Etc., etc.<br /><br />Shit, James Clear's Habits Academy is ONLY $299. Of course, it's not individual ... it's podcasts or videos for that price. But, it IS the "premier training platform." It has attestations from people with first names! It IS based on "proven scientific research" (primarily from social psych experiments that have failed at least one replication attempt, no doubt).<br /><div><br /></div><div>===</div><br />A lot of this has been amplified by the growth of the positive psychology movement, which has its own issues, including Marty Seligman's <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/08/profile-psychologist-authors-of-us.html">ties to SERE reverse engineering</a>, plus being, arguably, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2011/01/army-be-all-your-higher-power-can-be.html">more crassly capitalistic</a> than the general self-help movement.<br /><br />The American self-help movement, going back to people like Fulton J. Sheen, Norman Vincent Peale and Og Mandino, has had a bit of Social Darwinist background to it. Or, "economic barbarism," to riff on a Twitter discussion yesterday. Often, this is unstated, but, nevertheless, it's there. The focus is on individual betterment, with societal betterment ignored. (Some more liberal self-helpers may give lip service to this, but they're the exception.) Comments like "winning" life are a reflection and embodiment of that, as I see it, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.<br /><br />And, this is America, so such books have to have pseudo-statistics. Clear says that if saying "get" instead of "have" makes you 1 percent better per day, just compound that over a full year.<br /><br />First, he doesn't prove it will make you 1 percent better a day, he just uses that as a starting assumption. If that actually were true, per the "immutable laws" paragraph, we would have just one book about this.<br /><br />Second, better than what? That's never stated.<br /><br />Third, it assumes that such betterment is readily quantified.<br /><br />Fourth, it assumes that people like me won't ask those rhetorical questions I just asked.<br /><br />Even among places that sound better, like Cal-Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, there's a lot of touting of pretty cheap versions of positive psychology and such. <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/our_favorite_books_of_2018">Its staff's recommendations</a> for top books of 2018 have Steve Pinker's cluelessness about the Enlightenment, Positive Psych books, and the latest by "we're all in sales now" Daniel Pink. Weirdly, <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/our_favorite_books_of_2016">in 2016</a>, at least, different staff members picked books that directly contradicted each other, the last on the list being one I actually might read. And, a 2012 book on oxytocin was arguably scientifically out of date at the time and certainly is now. It's more a "possessiveness molecule" than a love molecule.<br /><br />(Also sad: One of the top "practical Stoicism" philosophers is a disciple of one of the top "immutable laws" self-help authors. Sad, but ... not really a surprise, when you think about Stoicism, its Logos, and other related ideas.)<br /><br />===<br /><br />Note: The person from whose Medium site I kyped the picture says "just say no to self-help," then goes on to talk about "hacking your life" and the "one thing you need." It turns out she's written 11 books, or rather, "books," (see below) offers "coaching" and other things, but will tell you to say no to self-help.<br /><br />Of course!<br /><br />You should instead pay for "other-help." That's where the Tony Robbins types make their money. Videos and podcasts. Personalized emails, or pseudo-personalized. All things web so they can help you (remove money from your wallet). And, no, I don't believe that you can have PTSD symptoms for 30 years, possibly 40, and magically have them disappear in six weeks, ether. Sorry, Mary Schiller. (And, reading a bit more of that comment on your breathless blurb of another person's self-help book [or is it other-help] no. Especially not with that guy babbling about "Divine Mind" and the other New Age BS,. and <a href="https://www.michaelneill.org/coaching/">charging $3,000 to listen to you</a>. (And writing three books, even though he claims to have the one true thing.) Even sadder is, if <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Am-Just-Woman-domestic-violence-ebook/dp/B072MRX8ZR/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1546489118&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=Mary+Schiller">per her autobiography</a> and my reading between the lines, she thinks that having a New Agey "it happened for a reason" revelation about why she was sexually abused, run like hell from her. Karma is more offensive than Christian original sin. Run like hell from these people, beyond the issue of them wanting to rip you off. They will fuck up your life.<br /><br />And, no, I'm not saying that because I take PTSD lightly. I'm saying it, from what I know, for exactly the opposite reason. I simply do not believe that a child sexual abuse "survivor" who was then further traumatized in a first marriage could magically heal in six weeks. Period. Rather, that PTSD is stuffed down some New Agey rabbit hole. If it doesn't bite you again before you die, consider yourself lucky.<br /><br />Most of her alleged "books" are 30 page pamphlets. Even in modern e-book publishing, calling them books is a stretch. Whether it's a lie or not? YMMV. And multiple ones from them are about making money. And, that money-making doesn't heal PTSD either.<br /><br />But, that's why self-help / other-help (flip sides of the same coin) are so uniquely American. They're highly predicated on capitalism. Capitalism plus a quick fix.<br /><br />That's America's cultural DNA, or at least its majoritarian cultural DNA, in a nutshell. Why are lotteries so popular here? Quick-fix capitalism.<br /><br />(Way back when, Og, Fulton and Norman, as far as I know, weren't peddling tschotschkes along with their books. Maybe that's because, pre-Internet, they didn't know better. Imagine an Og Mandino set of pamphlet-length e-"books." Fulton J. Sheen self-help T-shirts with inspirational messages. [Or cassocks like that for hipster priests.] Norman Vincent Peale doing TED talks. [Remember, the E in TED stands for "entertainment." <a href="https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization">No, really</a>. It's not "education."])<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/XpoI0wrsM80" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/XpoI0wrsM80/my-anti-self-help-help-for-you.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-anti-self-help-help-for-you.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-9061771680608710142Thu, 03 Jan 2019 14:59:00 +00002019-01-03T08:59:01.030-06:00communismexistentialismAttempts to normalize Sartre's bromance with Marx failRetired Wayne State professor of the history of ideas Ronald Aronson, an expert philosophical commenter on Jean-Paul Sartre, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Camus-Sartre-Story-Friendship-Quarrel/dp/0226000249">on his friendship with Albert Camus</a>, attempts to rehabilitate both Marxism and Sartre's attempt to rehabilitate it&nbsp;<a href="https://bostonreview.net/philosophy-religion/ronald-aronson-philosophy-our-time">in a new Boston&nbsp; Review essay</a>.<br /><br />And fails.<br /><br />In a nutshell, here's why.<br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal">First, Sartre did find a weak point — rather, the weakest point — of Marxism 101, with all of its permutations through Lenin, Stalin, Mao and even revisers like the Frankfurt School.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s Hegelian dialectic.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Congrats to Sartre for seeing the main issue that makes Marxism even more a pseudoscience than most theories of economics, since Hegelian dialectic and its thesis-synthesis-antithesis is purely a philosophical idea, and totally unscientific.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">BUT! Marxism is not Marxism without Hegelian dialectic. Pull that out, and you're engaging with non-Marxist Socialist theorizing of some sort.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Second, while comparing and contrasting Sartre to Camus, and intertwining them, and saying that Sartre tried to find a third way, Aronson ignores how late Sartre was to the table on criticizing both Stalin in particular and Soviet Communism in general.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Third, Marx ignored, or never thought through, larger economic consumptive problems of capitalism — resource exploitation problems that aren’t part of Marxism.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Peak Oil — temporarily offset by fracking — is one.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Climate change is a much bigger one, as&nbsp;<a href="https://bostonreview.net/philosophy-religion/bruce-robbins-marxism-without-progress">this Boston Review essay</a>&nbsp;notes in passing.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As far as Aronson's book on Sartre and Camus? Without staking absolutist positions on either side, Camus was in general right to reject the use of violence in social movements. And, per some critical reviews of his book (at that second link in the first paragraph), Aronson reportedly butters his bread clearly for Sartre, and for postmodernism that follows to some degree from him. You lost me there.<br /><div><br /></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/aswB8zvfECU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/aswB8zvfECU/attempts-to-normalize-sartres-bromance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/attempts-to-normalize-sartres-bromance.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-1746123694334313359Wed, 02 Jan 2019 14:37:00 +00002019-01-13T12:38:59.972-06:00Pujols (Albert)St. Louis CardinalsMore just say no to Bryce Harper, or call Scott Boras' bluff<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201812220/images/headshots/c/c61e922e_mlbam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="120" src="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201812220/images/headshots/c/c61e922e_mlbam.jpg" /></a></div>So, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/harpebr03.shtml">Bryce Harper</a>&nbsp;free agency derby carries on, presuming agent Scott Boras is still hunting something like 10/$350 and either one or two opt-outs.<br /><br />(See the poll at upper right or <a href="https://vote.pollcode.com/66924822">click the link</a> to vote on when you think he signs a deal.)<br /><br />Do you look at the guy with the 10-WAR year and say, yeah, we hope we get even close to that?<br /><br />Or do you look at the guy with the THREE sub-2 WAR years (and only one of those due primarily to injury) and say "Too much risk factor"?<br /><br />Per the third slide in <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/quick-hits-goold-on-the-cardinals/collection_2d9631f1-87df-5096-971d-f6132c713c69.html">this round-up</a> by Derrick Goold, I presume the Cardinals, John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch do the latter.<br /><br />Let's compare Harper to a big contract the Cards were willing to take on in trade just 12 months ago, namely,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stantmi03.shtml">Giancarlo Stanton</a>, as I've already done this on Twitter in exchange with Bill James.<br /><br />The 10 years left on his contract, at $285 million, are actually "just" $28.5 million AAV. (Take away his option year, and 9/$260 is approximately $29M AAV.) But, you'd pay him 10/$350 if Bryce is getting that, right? Even if Bryce is 3 years younger?<br /><br />So, let's look at WAR.<br /><br />Harper, seven years, 27.4 WAR is 3.9 per year. Stanton, nine years at 39.2, is 4.35 per year.<br /><br />Let's throw out best and worst years of both and check that.<br /><br />Harper? 16.3/5=3.26. Stanton? 27/7=3.85. &nbsp;You've still got that one-half WAR per year difference. Another way of putting this is, if you throw out the best year of both, Stanton still has four 4-WAR seasons and Harper two. (If you want to round up Harper's 3.7 year, we get to do that with Stanton's 3.8.)<br /><br />In addition, other than when he got hit in the face by a pitch, Stanton was a much better health risk.<br /><br />Add in that Harper has, in the past, been valued more highly on defense than Stanton and B-Ref putting him at -3.0 on dWAR in 2018 should be of some concern.<br /><br />(And, on MLB Trade Rumors, you have Cards fans clearly undercutting the "Best Fans in Baseball" claim by saying they'd pay MORE for Harper per year over 10 years than per year over five years to resign&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/goldspa01.shtml">Paul Goldschmidt</a>, who has averaged more than 5 WAR a year, with throwing out best and worst years. Derp???)<br /><br />Besides Stanton, the Cards have shown that they're not always cheapskates.<br /><br />They offered&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/heywaja01.shtml">Jason Heyward</a>&nbsp;the highest AAV of any bidder, but lost in part (thanks for bailing us out, Cubs) due to no opt-out. They pursued&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/priceda01.shtml">David Price</a>&nbsp;hard. They offered Phat&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml">Albert Pujols</a>&nbsp;8/$198 (thanks Arte for bailing us out). Just a friendly reminder on that: The Cards could still have him on the books for one more year had the Angels not stepped in. (Some people bash Mo for not offering opt-outs, but when the team is taking the risk of a contract of seven years or more, if a player is going to get an opt-out after, say, three years, why shouldn't the team get one after, say, five, by making the last two years "mutual option"?)<br /><br />Now, the Cardinals could call Boras' bluff, as could other teams. Offer him a five-year contract, with an opt-out after two years, and front weighted at $37M per for each of the first two years, and $32M each of the next two, with the fifth year either $37M or a $17M buyout. If old Bryce really is a "generational talent" he's got two years to show his 10-WAR year wasn't a total fluke (and to show he can stay healthy). That's detailed in that "caveated" link above.<br /><br />Harper passes <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kershcl01.shtml">Clayton Kershaw</a>, Stanton and everybody else, at least for those first two years, on AAV. If he is that good, then he can opt out. If not, the Cards somewhat limit their damages.<br /><br />Or, to twist this more, cut the base on an offer similar to the above, but possibly with a straight fifth year, by 20 percent or so. But then add in incentives that, if all met, would raise the possible max value by 30 percent. MLB doesn't allow performance incentives, but there are plenty of others — All-Star Game, ASG starter, MVP top 5, MVP winner, NLCS MVP, World Series MVP, Gold Glove and/or Fielding Bible, etc.<br /><br />In either case, the Cards make a serious offer, and a serious challenge at the same time. They accept an opt-out contract while still giving themselves some protection.<br /><br />Some may be laughing, but you shouldn't.<br /><br />The player option plus a separate team option opt-outs is what Boras client <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=kikuch000yus">Yusei Kikuchi</a> got, with <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/quick-hits-boras-swellopts-anderson-as-pence.html">details</a> at MLB Trade Rumors, including comment this could become more popular.<br /><br />In reality? If the Dodgers really are serious about getting below the lux-tax line, then it's Phillies vs. White Sox and supposedly Harper really doesn't like Philly? And, while Philly has said it will spend, I don't see both <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/machama01.shtml">Manny Machado</a> and Harper going there.<br /><div><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/X9Q5Kp-TahU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/X9Q5Kp-TahU/more-just-say-no-to-bryce-harper-or.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/01/more-just-say-no-to-bryce-harper-or.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-1969060483983652517Mon, 31 Dec 2018 20:19:00 +00002018-12-31T22:43:56.314-06:00Bloggingcriminal jurisprudenceNew Year's resolutionsThis Texas Progressive's 2018 year in review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="349" height="154" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This outpost of the Texas Progressive Alliance hopes readers keep any New Year’s goals simple and measurable, and as goals not resolutions. This outpost also hopes readers consider or pursue life changes in the New Year that increase their contentment and are done at their own personal choice.<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/">SocraticGadfly</a>describes how DSA darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had another unforced error on Twitter — this one <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/ocasio-cortez-has-another-unforced.html">over Congressional pay in the shutdown</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Gadfly also offered <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/top-blog-posting-of-2018-year-heavy-on.html">a roundup of his top blogging for the year</a>, going by views and other factors. Much of it was devoted to batting down conspiracy theories.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And here are some posts of interest from other Texas and national blogs and news sites.<br /><br />At the Dallas Observer, <a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/so-much-for-white-year-ahead-for-dallas-what-about-the-black-year-in-2019-11433866">Jim Schutze takes a look</a> at the white year, black year and general year in review, while giving good decade-aged kicks in the nads to John Wiley Price and the Perot clan.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/steve-chaney-convicted-murder-texas-declared-innocent-junk-science/">Texas Monthly</a> looks at Steven Mark Chaney’s acquittal after serving 25 years on a murder sentence due to junk science..</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Since this is a year-end wrap, Texas Monthly also looks at <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/texas-authors-favorite-books-2018/">its top Texas books of 2018</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Along with your host, Michael Harris suggests <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/i-have-forgotten-how-toread/article37921379/?utm_source=pocket&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=pockethits">reading actual print books</a>, even as he, an author, struggles with that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ken Paxton’s prosecutors are challenging a pay ruling against them by the CCA, and he is trying to undercut them again, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/27/ken-paxton-prosecutors-texas-court-patently-absurd-result/">notes the Texas Tribune</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Grits for Breakfast posts his 2018 <a href="http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2018/12/top-texas-cjreform-stories-of-2018.html">top 10 criminal justice reform stories</a>.</div><br />The Texas Observer notes six Texan individuals or groups <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/six-texas-political-players-who-lost-power-in-2018/">who lost power this past year</a>. (Contra Kuff, I think the section about Bexar Dems is pretty clear.)<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fracking of gas as well as oil is great for the Texas economy, bad for climate change, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/27/fossil-fuel-south-korea-climate-building/">the AP describes</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://doscentavos.net/2018/12/28/dcs-top-10-of-2018/">Dos Centavos</a> posts his personal 2018 top 10.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.dbcgreentx.net/blog/new-democrats-just-kinder-gentler-republicans">David Bruce Collins</a> takes a look at how many of the U.S. Democratic freshmen are actually New Democrats.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Texas Trib notes that state Sen. Charles Schwertner <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/21/metoo-investigation-charles-schwertner-leaves-more-questions/">remains in the MeToo spotlight</a> after an ambiguous investigation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Texas Observer catches my own state Senatecritter <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-senator-bob-hall-defends-white-nationalist-ally-as-victim-of-political-correctness/">liking him some white nationalists</a>. Unfortunately, as it also notes, after being primaried by a sensible state Rep. and winning, Bob Hall coasted to victory.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Observer also offers up a collation of <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/six-stories-about-rural-texas-you-should-read-before-2018-ends/">six stories about rural Texas</a>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation/district/4816230">ProPublica reports</a> Dallas schools aren’t helpful for minorities, in many ways. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/make-a-mayors-race-as-good-a-show-as-the-kessler-maybe-people-will-vote-11428126">Jim Schutze</a> seems to have a bromance for Angela Hunt running for Dallas mayor; he’ll <a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/minority-students-have-less-opportunities-in-dallas-11422673">accept Scott Griggs</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://paradiseinhell.net/2018/12/20/individual-1-speaks-red-translates/">Paradise in Hell</a> remains our premier interpreter of Individual 1.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://juanitajean.com/paul-ryan/">Juanita</a> says "good riddance" to Paul Ryan.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://foolishwatcher.com/2018/12/17/how-about-we-all-agree-that-our-2019-new-years-resolution-will-be-i-wont-defend-sex-creeps/">Therese Odell</a> suggests a New Year's resolution we should all adopt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://thebloggess.com/2018/12/22/considering-this-holiday-arose-from-the-severed-head-of-a-wild-boar-i-think-its-actually-worked-out-pretty-well/">The Bloggess</a> celebrates another successful community giving effort.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Many unions are still slouching toward Gomorrah. <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/12/24/bret-d24.html">World Socialist</a> notes a Wisconsin Aerospace local that scrubbed a strike and won’t tell the public why.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><!--EndFragment--><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/OjdRFXx-oUM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/OjdRFXx-oUM/this-texas-progressives-2018-year-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/this-texas-progressives-2018-year-in.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-1864103363395725712Sat, 29 Dec 2018 16:48:00 +00002019-01-17T17:43:59.606-06:00Beltway stenosBush (George H.W.)conspiracy thinkingCynicismgoosestepping KossacksMcCain (John)O'Rourke (Beto)Putin (Vladimir)Trump (Donald)Top blog posting of 2018 —A year heavy on refuting conspiracy theories<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://electric-cloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2018-software-delivery-predictions-300x245.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="245" data-original-width="300" src="https://electric-cloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2018-software-delivery-predictions-300x245.png" /></a></div>Below are a few of my top 10, by volume, blog posts of 2018, with a bit of summary and a final wrap at the end.<br /><br />They're all at least somewhat related to conspiracy thinking, which bloomed in profusion this year, as much as rapid-response tweeting on various issues from President Trump.<br /><br />Speaking of ...<br /><br />This summer, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/07/mueller-time-new-angle-how-serious-to.html">I called out</a> Marcy Wheeler, aka Emptywheel, along with other Kossack alumni Dead-End Kids, for her absolutist claims backed by less than absolutist evidence that Donald Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to get Trump elected.<br /><br />A month later, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/08/shirtlost-dumbshit-zach-haller-actual.html">I called out</a> the presumably non-existent Forensicator, along with Tim Leonard/Adam Carter and anybody else invested in his likely creation, such as Disobedient Media, as well as people involved with propagating his claims that Guccifer 2.0 was NOT a Russian intelligence asset — such call-outs including Bill Binney, Ray McGovern and other members of the majority faction of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Patrick Lawrence for his credulous reporting, all of this indulged in detail at Consortium News. I also called out much of this consortium, abetted by the likes of ShirtLost DumbShit Zach Haller, for being the likely originator of Seth Rich conspiracy theories. (That said, Consortium News is <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/06/blogroll-cleanup-good-riddance.html">a mare's nest</a> of conspiracy thinking.)<br /><br />Speaking of Seth Rich conspiracy theories, back in February, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/02/dncfraudlawsuit-im-glad-jared-beck-aint.html">I called out</a> idiot lawyer Jared Beck and his DNC fraud lawsuit filing, which sounds like it was written with a crayon.<br /><br />Starting in February, and compiling more evidence throughout the year, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/02/beto-orourke-conservadem-moderatodem-at.html">I called out</a> Beto O'Rourke for being a Fauxgressive ConservaDem.<br /><br />When Schmuck Talk Express John McCain died, <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/08/rip-john-mccain.html">I called out</a> Beltway media stenographers, bipartisan foreign policy think tanks and the like for failing to tell the truth about a person who was an Islamophobe and a warmonger, among other things.<br /><br />Fortified by that, later <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/poppy-bush-opportunist-president-is-dead.html">I called out</a> the Beltway stenos and allies for similar hagiography when Iran-Contra and October Surprise co-conspirator Poppy Bush died.<br /><br />All call-outs, right?<br /><br />With that pattern, I invite you to read <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/12/is-world-ready-for-some-neo-cynicism.html">my 2015 post</a> on practicing philosophical Neo-Cynicism, my update on Diogenes' original Cynicism, and rejecting the conventional wisdom — and not just in politics — of the chattering classes.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/w9ltPmgNU2A" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/w9ltPmgNU2A/top-blog-posting-of-2018-year-heavy-on.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/top-blog-posting-of-2018-year-heavy-on.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-3079885288352986681Fri, 28 Dec 2018 14:31:00 +00002018-12-28T08:31:34.571-06:00hybridsHonda Insight 3.0: Will we be subject to more foolery?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/honda/insight/2019/oem/2019_honda_insight_sedan_touring_fq_oem_11_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/honda/insight/2019/oem/2019_honda_insight_sedan_touring_fq_oem_11_500.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Honda Insight 3.0</td></tr></tbody></table>I remember the first Honda Insight, 15 years ago. I did, for about a year and a half, some of the automotive test drives, and writing, for the automotive section in my group of suburban Dallas newspapers.<br /><br />I test drove both the original Insight, and the original Prius, the one that looked kind of like a Yaris, not like THE PRIUS of today.<br /><br />That first-gen Prius had little acceleration, of course. But it did hit its EPA mileage estimates.<br /><br />The Insight, first-gen, was a two-seater hatchback with the batteriers under the flat base inside the rear hatch. It had a 3-cylinder gas engine and a stick transmission. (I can't remember if the original Prius, US version, had a geared automatic or a CVT.)<br /><br />Anyway, Honda had an EPA estimate of 70/61.<br /><br />Not even close in reality. And, I had a stick for my own car, so I knew how to do pretty butter-smooth shifting. I couldn't even hit 60 in city traffic, let alone 70. I didn't drive it on freeways outside the Metromess; I'm sure that, if I had gotten over 55 for any period of time, the highway mileage would have been 41, not 61. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight">Wikipedia lists </a>40 under new EPA testing, so I was right!<br /><br />It was cars like this that led the EPA to get mileage testing out of wind tunnels and into real-world situations.<br /><br />Honda then pulled the Insight, even as Toyota prepared the new Prius, and it to be a separate nameplate.<br /><br />Seeing its success, Honda decided to fire back.<br /><br />The Insight 2.0 was, essentially, a Prius knockoff chassis put on a dumbed-down version of a Civic hybrid drivetrain. By dumbed-down, I mean, Honda stuck a three-valve per cylinder gas engine under the hood. It also had cheap fit and fixtures inside.<br /><br />Honda, I presume, had been looking at this at about 2008, not only seeing the success of the Prius but seeing oil prices go over $100 a barrel.<br /><br />And, the company brought out Insight 2.0 in —<br /><br />2010, just in time for the Great Recession to crush gas prices.<br /><br />It limped along for two years, then more and more people began realizing Honda was ripping them off again with a poor-acceleration car, even for a hybrid, and one that had no better gas mileage, even with the aerodynamics, than a Civic insight.<br /><br />So, Honda let the car run a usual four-year development cycle, with no investment after year two, then pulled the plug a second time.<br /><br />And now, per the new Consumer Reports? Insight 3.0 is out, I've read. And that magazine doesn't like it a lot more than version 2.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.edmunds.com/honda/insight/">Edmonds says</a> the same main thing as Consumer Reports: The gas engine is very noisy under any serious acceleration. (It has a 1.5 liter gas engine vs. 1.8 on the Prius.) Otherwise, weirdly, it rates the Insight higher than the Prius.<br /><br />The best current version is 55/49 on MPG, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight#Third_generation_(2019%E2%80%93present)">says Wikipedia</a>. Cars.com has the best version of the Prius at 58/53, even with the bigger engine.<br /><br />It looks better than the newest iterations of the Prius, which have been dipped in Toyota's recent bad styling for car front ends. But, that's about it. Interesting, both Edmonds and Cars.com like its interior, especially its screen display, more than Consumer Reports.<br /><br />Given Toyata's edge in performance, plus Honda's track record from the past, and issues with the current version (a tiny electric motor and batteries seem to be part of the problem), and it being the same price, roughly, forget it. I'd buy one of Hyundai's Ioniq's before it, too. They, too, perform better, but they have a Toyota-ugly front end.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/puLVxnQz4PM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/puLVxnQz4PM/honda-insight-30-will-we-be-subject-to.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/honda-insight-30-will-we-be-subject-to.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-5872297362611421201Thu, 27 Dec 2018 13:17:00 +00002019-01-03T11:25:21.135-06:00St. Louis CardinalsCardinals make big move with Andrew Miller, should not stop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201812220/images/headshots/e/ebf878fa_mlbam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="120" height="200" src="https://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201812220/images/headshots/e/ebf878fa_mlbam.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>The St. Louis Cardinals have made a definite, and much-needed, upgrade to the bullpen with the signing of <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/millean01.shtml">Andrew Miller</a>. And, it's at a good price. That's under $7 million a year, which is the approximate cost of 1 WAR. From 2014-17, which includes a decent but not fantastic 2014, Miller had 11.1 WAR, or about 2.8 per year. And, that doesn't account for the ripple effect of his anchoring a pen, and also his multi-inning pitching ability. (See more on that below.)<br /><br />If he has an even 2 WAR or close to it over the next two years and vests that third year, it's a deal indeed. (His decent but not fantastic 2014, between Boston and Baltimore, was 1.9 WAR.)<br /><br />That, along with the trade for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/goldspa01.shtml">Paul Goldschmidt</a>.&nbsp;which I <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/goldy-to-cards-i-approve-of-this-trade.html">highly salute</a>, make them serious contenders for next year — and beyond, if they get Goldy to ink a new contract.<br /><br />But, Mo shouldn't stop there.<br /><br />They could stand further pitching upgrades, both starters and in the pen. Why? Because, especially with starters, there is no such thing as too much pitching.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The first is pretty straightforward. The Indians have indicated that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/klubeco01.shtml">Corey Kluber</a>&nbsp;and possibly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bauertr01.shtml">Trevor Bauer</a>&nbsp;might be available via trade. (There are pluses for both the Cards on both players, and on how much Cleveland might want for either. Bauer will be cheaper, with two arb years left, vs Kluber's three inked years, two of them player options. Kluber has a better long-term track record, with Bauer just really breaking out last year. But Bauer is five years younger.)<br /><br /><a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gyorkje01.shtml">Jedd Gyorko</a>&nbsp;is superfluous with the presumed move of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/carpema01.shtml">Matt Carpenter</a>&nbsp;to third.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martijo08.shtml">Jose Martinez</a>&nbsp;has a great bat plus a stone glove and so is ideally an AL DH guy, and the rise of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/oneilty01.shtml">Tyler O'Neill</a>&nbsp;means outfield room is needed, at least if he's ready for a full-time role. I'm not saying Gyorko plus Martinez swing the deal by themselves, but, it's a start, and two obvious pieces of a package. If not with the Indians, then look at other AL suitors who might have a No. 2 or 3 starter, preferably lefty, of decent quality. (That said, MLB Trade Rumors <a href="https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/nl-central-notes-reds-winker-dozier-martinez.html">reports on Jan. 3</a> the Cards are, according to Ken Rosenthal, less and less likely to trade Martinez this year. Let him DH in interleague games in AL parks, cut Goldy a day off every two weeks and play once a week at a corner OF spot [more if unfortunately necessary] and you get him, what, 150-200 ABs and limit his glove damage. Given that he's a year away from even entering arbitration, makes sense, if he's not a part of any good trade talks.)<br /><br />This lets the Cards have another arm to help move beyond&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wainwad01.shtml">Adam Wainwright</a>, unless he has a major rebound in 2019, and to decide more how much to pay&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mikolmi01.shtml">Miles Mikolas</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wachami01.shtml">Michael Wacha</a>&nbsp;a year from now. (Any contract the Cards give Wacha should be cash-low and incentive-high based on his injury history.)<br /><br />I don't know who besides Gyorko and Martinez would make a package, but it's worth further thought. I would be willing to include a pitcher back as long as its not Mikolas,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martica04.shtml">Carlos Martinez</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reyesal02.shtml">Alex Reyes</a>, and not the hottest of minors prospects. (Speaking of, the Cards, after Reyes having both Tommy John surgery a couple of years, then being shelved last year after just a few innings, have no idea what he will eventually bring to the table.)<br /><br />The second trade, that I've seen suggested elsewhere? A salary dump swap. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/fowlede01.shtml">Dexter Fowler</a>&nbsp;goes back to the Rockies for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/daviswa01.shtml">Wade Davis</a>. Salaries are just about dead even. Both might benefit from change of scenery, and the Cards are still in the look for a good set-up guy. Even allowing for the reality of Fowler's depression last season, as Bernie Miklasz notes, the bottom line <a href="https://www.101sports.com/2018/12/17/we-wish-health-and-happiness-for-dexter-fowler-but-in-the-end-its-all-about-performance/">is still performance</a>.<br /><br />Rockies have a whole to fill with both&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/parrage01.shtml">Gerardo Parra</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gonzaca01.shtml">Carlos Gonzales</a>&nbsp;not resigned, even if they try moving <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/desmoia01.shtml">Ian Desmond</a> out there after the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/murphda08.shtml">Daniel Murphy</a> signing, if he moves to first.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dahlda01.shtml">David Dahl</a>&nbsp;has looked decent for them in cups of coffee in 2016 and a partial season in 2018, but they might still want another outfielder.<br /><br />That would give a righty-lefty mix of relievers who have past, if not current, top-notch closer skills. It would also let the Cards consider stealing a page from the Rays against teams with lefty-heavy batting orders, since Miller has done multi-inning pitching in the past, and use him as an "opener," knowing Davis is still there.<br /><br />And, I'm willing to make that swap, even if Jose Martinez is also unloaded as art of another trade and there's little depth left in the outfield. Potentially, that gives the Cards a rock-solid set of moundsmen for both the rotation and the bullpen for the next three years.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/WJFwLf3nr_k" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/WJFwLf3nr_k/cardinals-make-big-move-with-andrew.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/cardinals-make-big-move-with-andrew.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-6631619916021287477Wed, 26 Dec 2018 13:27:00 +00002018-12-26T07:27:18.959-06:00Texas LegislatureTexas Progressives happy holidays: Education, New Dems and white nationalist bromance in the Lege<!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="349" height="154" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-01YHJs78QUU/W_L3aLawf4I/AAAAAAAAJrM/vEJuePh7SIwt4pFM0YZtssNCmIMNkKoBgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Texas%2BProgressives.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes everyone the happiest of holidays, and reminds you <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2012/12/laplace-is-reason-for-season.html">Laplace is the reason for the season</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>as it brings you this week's roundup.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://offthekuff.com/wp/">Off the Kuff</a> took note of the <a href="http://offthekuff.com/wp/?p=89008">latest bit of fascination</a> with small counties' vote totals.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/">SocraticGadfly</a>, influenced by his reading of a new bio of Reagan, posted the first of what will be several counterfactual history blog posts — <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/alternative-history-ronnie-runs-in-1964.html">what if Reagan, not Goldwater had somehow run in 1964</a>? (Click the "counterfactual history" tag for similar writing by him.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And here are some posts of interest from other state and national blogs and news sites.<br /><br />At Popular Resistance, <a href="https://popularresistance.org/from-the-bottom-up-the-case-for-an-independent-left-party/">Howie Hawkins explains</a> why the Green Party needs to go (back, in some ways) to a dues-paying membership. I agree — it undercuts the power of paper parties that have too much; it addresses the "cheating candidate" issue that the GP faces at the state level, usually in these paper parties; and it has a left-wing political history.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.raiseyourhandtexas.org/school-funding/dear-texas-commission-on-school-finance/">Raise Your Hand Texas</a> pens a letter to the Commission on School Finance.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://bettertexasblog.org/2018/12/a-good-start-now-its-time-for-action-school-finance-commission-releases-its-final-report/">Better Texas Blog</a> calls the commission's report a "good start".</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.dbcgreentx.net/blog/new-democrats-just-kinder-gentler-republicans">David Bruce Collins</a> takes a look at how many of the U.S. Democratic freshmen are actually New Democrats.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Texas Trib notes that state Sen. Charles Schwertner <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/21/metoo-investigation-charles-schwertner-leaves-more-questions/">remains in the MeToo spotlight</a> after an ambiguous investigation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Texas Observer catches my own state Senatecritter <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-senator-bob-hall-defends-white-nationalist-ally-as-victim-of-political-correctness/">liking him some white nationalists</a>. Unfortunately, as it also notes, after being primaried by a sensible state Rep. and winning, Bob Hall coasted to victory.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Observer also offers up a collation of <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/six-stories-about-rural-texas-you-should-read-before-2018-ends/">six stories about rural Texas</a>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/miseducation/district/4816230">ProPublica reports</a> Dallas schools aren’t helpful for minorities, in many ways. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/make-a-mayors-race-as-good-a-show-as-the-kessler-maybe-people-will-vote-11428126">Jim Schutze</a> seems to have a bromance for Angela Hunt running for Dallas mayor; he’ll <a href="https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/minority-students-have-less-opportunities-in-dallas-11422673">accept Scott Griggs</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://paradiseinhell.net/2018/12/20/individual-1-speaks-red-translates/">Paradise in Hell</a> remains our premier interpreter of Individual 1.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://juanitajean.com/paul-ryan/">Juanita</a> says "good riddance" to Paul Ryan.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://foolishwatcher.com/2018/12/17/how-about-we-all-agree-that-our-2019-new-years-resolution-will-be-i-wont-defend-sex-creeps/">Therese Odell</a> suggests a New Year's resolution we should all adopt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://thebloggess.com/2018/12/22/considering-this-holiday-arose-from-the-severed-head-of-a-wild-boar-i-think-its-actually-worked-out-pretty-well/">The Bloggess</a> celebrates another successful community giving effort.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Many unions are still slouching toward Gomorrah. <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/12/24/bret-d24.html">World Socialist</a> notes a Wisconsin Aerospace local that scrubbed a strike and won’t tell the public why.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/4RmYE6GOvg0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/4RmYE6GOvg0/texas-progressives-happy-holidays.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/texas-progressives-happy-holidays.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-2214305846418936265Mon, 24 Dec 2018 12:00:00 +00002019-01-19T14:39:02.403-06:00116th CongressBeltway stenosConstitution of the United Statesfederal government shutdowninside-the-Beltway thinkingMcCain (John)Ocasio-Cortez (Alexandria)Schmuck Talk Express™Ocasio-Cortez has another unforced error: This time, she botches government shutdown info<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez_speaks_to_El_Borde.png/220px-Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez_speaks_to_El_Borde.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="220" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez_speaks_to_El_Borde.png/220px-Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez_speaks_to_El_Borde.png" /></a></div>Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, red rose Congressional queen of the House of Lancaster, I mean, the Democratic Socialists of America, has had several unforced errors since beating Joe Crowley to essentially win election to her 14th Congressional District.<br /><br />First and most notable for people like me who bat outside the duopoly on foreign as well as domestic policy, was her retreat from words of support for BDS.<br /><br />Second and related was her gushing over the Schmuck Talk Express™,&nbsp; John McCain, when he died.<br /><br />Well, now, she's shown that she should tweet less, research more, including knowing some basic constitutional facts, on the government shutdown.<br /><br />AOC has a set of tweets that The Hill "reported" into a story, and oh, there's so much wrong.<br /><br />First, she says Congresscritters should have salary cut off, after decrying partisan nature of shutdown (yet being already bipartisan enough to not call out Freedom Fries Caucus head Jim Jordan by name).<br /><br />Second, she ignores a problem (which The Hill itself gets wrong as to the "why"). You can't cut Congressional salaries.<br /><br />That relates to her not even mentioning the president's salary during the shutdown. Which, yes, also falls under the same rubric as that of Congresscritters, which The Hill got wrong.<br /><br />It's not just illegal, which The Hill claims; it is unconstitutional, which is an entirely different kettle of fish. <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-do-politicians-and-judges-get-paid-during-a-government-shutdown">Explicitly so</a> with the president.And for good reason. Although the president wound up much stronger than most members of Team Philadelphia 1787 not named Hamilton intended, the founders didn't want Congress forcing a president to their will by hacking his pay. (Of course, they objected when George III tried to insulate colonial governors from colonial legislative control, so, and far from the only time in America's founding, hypocrisy was at play.)<br /><br />As for Congress, per the same link, in the current Congress, it's illegal to cut their pay, explicitly, by the 27th Amendment, which The Hill also gets wrong. When the new Congress starts, AOC could push a bill on the first day of the session that they don't get paid until the shutdown ends. She could also ask for it to be part of the standing rules in House and Senate. If I am engaging in correct constitutional interpretation, that could pass muster. But, short of an amendment, she still can't do anything about the president's salary.<br /><br />Finally, if we're going to criticize Beltway stenos for "reporting" on Trump's tweets, should we not hold the stenos to the same standard re Ocasio-Cortez? I say yes. That piece had no actual reporting and was inaccurate. I've already Tweeted to the particular Beltway steno who "reported" this, specifically on the error, and got no response.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/AqoF2CvzPac" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/AqoF2CvzPac/ocasio-cortez-has-another-unforced.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/ocasio-cortez-has-another-unforced.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-1141379244811140678Fri, 21 Dec 2018 13:30:00 +00002018-12-25T20:24:49.610-06:00Counterfactual historyGoldwater (Barry)Johnson (Lyndon)Reagan (Ronald)Alternative history: Ronnie runs in 1964, not 1980<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1519672275l/38734739.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1519672275l/38734739.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>Note: This and other counterfactual histories ahead are stimulated by the new bio, "<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38734739-reagan?ac=1&amp;from_search=true">Reagan: An American Journey</a>," reviewed by me <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2637241347">here</a>. (Spoiler: I three-starred it.)<br /><br />Picture Ronald Reagan first giving his famous "A Time for a Decision" speech not in October 1964 as a Barry Goldwater fundraiser but a year earlier, for whatever reason, but it getting just as much attention then as in reality.<br /><br />Many of the SoCal conservatives who backed Goldwater might never have jumped on that train. They would have seen Reagan right then as both more packageable and more charismatic than Goldy. As to people saying he was a political novice? One answer would be the rhetorical "So was Ike." Another would point at his Screen Actors Guild presidency and related items.<br /><br />How would Reagan have fared?<br /><br />In my opinion, he would have bombed even worse than Goldwater.<br /><br />First, he would have made some of the same gaffes as Goldwater.<br /><br />Remember, he worried that GE would fire him, years before GE Theater's ratings slid and they mutually separated, over his attacks on the TVA — attacks just like Goldwater made.<br /><br />Remember, already by this time, Reagan had mentioned voluntary Social Security.<br /><br />And, parallelling Goldy's "Let's lob one in the men's room of the Kremlin," just move back 20 years Reagan's open mic mic-check of "The bombing begins in 5 minutes."<br /><br />And, Reagan, just like Goldy, opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.<br /><br />With no presidential debates, Reagan's 1980 "There you go again" to Carter would not have been heard. And, had he tried something like that, LBJ would have clobbered him over that.<br /><br />Assuming he did something like his mic check or even close, LBJ would have run the Daisy commercial. He also would have run some sort of "affable doofus" commercial.<br /><br />At some point he would have gotten under Reagan's skin, and a public blow-up by St. Ronald would have finished things off.<br /><br />He would have lost at least as bad as Goldwater.<br /><br />What if he then tried to repair things by a 1966 gubernatorial run?<br /><br />Pat Brown — who should have taken him more seriously in the real world — would have been encouraged by LBJ to go for the kill in hopes of kayoing the entire California GOP. So, Reagan loses again.<br /><br />That means, in 1968, he's not in competition with Nixon for the GOP nomination. He's a frustrated has-been. And American history changes a lot. He fails more than in reality in trying to get the 1976 Republican nomination. He's not even in the picture for 1980. And U.S. conservativism is forced to adapt, as Republicans and Democrats drift closer into neoliberal nuancings.<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/P_ia8gVIZ9s" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/P_ia8gVIZ9s/alternative-history-ronnie-runs-in-1964.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/alternative-history-ronnie-runs-in-1964.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7532871.post-2247485328603432476Thu, 20 Dec 2018 14:00:00 +00002019-01-17T18:11:21.827-06:00BloggingTime for another blogroll cleanup — bye, peopleThe biggest deletion? <strike>Since Massimo Pigliucci has gone to Patreon, which doesn't have an RSS, his old Plato's Footnote is out of the blogroll. That also said, his Patreon site is NOT going into my links list as of this time. A number of small comments issues over the past several months have become enough. That history of comments issues and related items is <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/04/some-philosophers-are-more-equally.html">here</a>. (That said, Dan Kaufman may read and comment less there, too, a silver lining.)</strike><br /><strike><br /></strike><strike>I'll still read him from time to time, since Patreon has email notices. But ... not gonna link him. Not right now. That may change in the future, but not now.</strike><br /><strike><br /></strike><strike>Beyond that, I had usually, on average, already read half or so the Friday links roundup he posted, so,&nbsp; unless something new popped up, I found it less stimulating than years ago. Also — and I know that, as a blogger, it's hard to avoid this entirely — he's starting to recycle stuff. In August, he wrote his third piece in less than 18 months about what's wrong, in his estimation, with informal fallacies of classical logic.</strike><br /><br />Scratch all that, as I have.<br /><br />Massimo is still doing new posts at Footnotes to Plato, at least through the end of 2018, though he has turned off commenting, it seems. That's fine. It still gives me something to read on the philosophical front, and, as in <a href="https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/between-strident-atheism-and-vanilla-ecumenicism/">this piece</a> about steering between the Scylla of Gnu Atheism and the Charybdis of Gould's non-overlapping magisteria, good stuff to read.<br /><br />And so, he's been re-added here. For now at least.<br /><br />I will leave this post like that for a few months, then, presuming I remember, delete most of the scratched out info.<br /><br />One linked almost as long? And which will certainly remain delinked? And is the biggest deletion?<br /><br /><a href="https://www.3quarksdaily.com/">3 Quarks Daily</a>&nbsp;had been in a bit of suspension in my mind for a few months. Posting a 15-year-old Harvard Magazine story about Egyptology is the latest in my craw of how it at times is pretentious about how it "curates" seven or eight things daily — then asks for money for this task of awesomeness, then pulls crap like that. (This is the first time I've seen anything THAT old, but I've seen stuff more than a year old before, and from my perspective on matters philosophical, I've seen more crap there — including two Alex Rosenberg pieces in less than a month. (The reality about him can be found in this piece by friend Massimo, "<a href="https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/why-alex-rosenberg-is-wrong-just-about-everything/">Why Alex Rosenberg is wrong about just about everything</a>.") More recently, it ran with a piece claiming "lefties are dissing evolution." The piece was actually about ev psych, not evolutionary biology, which is a pseudoscience.<br /><br />And, it has now blocked me from commenting there, since I voiced these complaints there. That is despite its running two philosophical essays I wrote for Massimo, which even made the first cut in a competition, as I note <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/12/is-world-ready-for-some-neo-cynicism.html">here</a>. And Twitter and FB. So, it's deleted. (It was the comment I had on the ev psych piece, which was total bullshit, plus a followup comment to another commenter about the Egyptology piece, that got me blocked. At least I went out in style.)<br /><br />I deleted The North Star because, while the previous incarnation of the site had great info from a leftist but not extremist POV, it's been more than 90 days since they started on a promised overhaul and the organizers still have nothing but an "about" / placeholder home page up. I'll add it back if and when the website is actually up and running.<br /><br />And, I've deleted another. And done other things related to that. And that's that.<br /><br />One I have added is <a href="http://www.carlbeijer.com/">Carl Beijer</a>. He blogs but occasionally, but, is usually at least half as snarky as he is on Twitter. At the same time ... for someone who worked for Nader twice, but doesn't note in a blog post that the reason Dems flipped so many Republican seats is that they ran a lot of military-industrial complex or spying-snooping complex ConservaDems is a bit of an eyebrow raiser. (Maybe he thinks those people don't go against Democrats' core values; to the degree the Doinks DO have core values, I'd agree with him, but ... he doesn't spell that out.) OTOH,&nbsp;<span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot;;">&nbsp;I would support&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.carlbeijer.com/2018/12/the-green-new-deal-is-good-plan-its-not.html" style="font-family: times;">Beijer's idea</a><span style="font-family: &quot;times&quot;;">&nbsp;of a more socialist Green New Deal than the Roses (or the US Green Party, I think he's right) have offered. Anyway ... he's his own person.</span><br /><br />Related? I've added <a href="http://coreyrobin.com/">Corey Robin</a>, who is somewhere between left-liberal and leftist. He remains more accommodating of DSA Dems than I am, and somewhat more accommodating of the "internal reform" idea, but, he certainly doesn't write blank checks. He posts rarely; I haven't followed him on Book of Face but I do on Twitter.<br /><br />Another add is <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2018/07/the-psychological-explanation-for-why-we-sometimes-hate-the-good-guy-51845">PsyPost</a>. It's pop psychology in reading level, but reasonably rigorous in what it reports. And very interesting<br /><br />A third, which I have read for years, is <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check">John Horgan's blog</a> at SciAm.<br /><br />A fourth is <a href="https://www.schneier.com/">Schneier on Security</a>, who covers all sorts of cybersecurity issues.<br /><br />A fifth is <a href="http://smokeypawsback.blogspot.com/">Smokey the Cat</a>, a Twitter friend and yinzer who is in my general neck of the world politically and has started into the blog world.<br /><br />A sixth is <a href="http://bosquebill.blogspot.com/">Bosque Bill</a>. It's not entirely about New Mexico, and it's not entirely about nature, but it's primarily pretty much about one or the other of those.<br /><br />A seventh addition is connected to the last deletion.<br /><br />Otherwise, I in general don't keep a long, large blogroll. Seriously, who has time to track 50 or more different ones? Especially if they're all ones about politics? (You'll notice that's not the case with mine.)<div class="blogger-post-footer">There is no god and I am his prophet. - SocraticGadfly</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~4/uXRqYlHZllk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Socraticgadfly/~3/uXRqYlHZllk/time-for-another-blogroll-cleanup-bye.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gadfly)0http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/12/time-for-another-blogroll-cleanup-bye.html